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THE GIRL BEYOND THE TRAIL

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THE GIRL BEYOND
THE TRAIL

BY
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First Published 1527

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CUNTENTS

CHAPTER

Oe Sichians

z: '
. “Witt You CoME with ME?” .
. Davip’s DECISION
. AT THOREAU’S :
. THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
. DAvip’s VIcToRY

. DAvip MFETs BAREE .

. THE START FOR THE NortH
. ON THE TRAIL.

. In SicHT oF TAvisn’s

. THE FINDING OF TAVISH

. NC | *AYER FOR TAVISH
eae. | RM ee ; ,

. FATHER ROLAND’s SECRET
. THE Mounrtarns !

. ‘THis is My Bear”

. Davip ExpLains

. WHY MarGE RAN Away

. “I Hate THE | ‘IcTuRE!”

. AT “ THE Nest”

. BROKAW 1S COMMUNICATIVE

10
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12
£13
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5 16
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as 18
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21
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A WomMAn’s LAUGHTER

104
117

136
150
163
175
186
193
204
217
229

Contents
CHAPTER PaGs
22. Davip 1s CONDEMNED , , < . 240
23. BROKAW’s CHALLENGE ‘ ; , - 249
24. THE KNockout . . ‘ : ‘ » 259
25. ‘‘ THEY HAVE Founp Our Trait!” . . 266
26. TARA TAKES VENGEANCE . j ; . ws

27. THE FINDING OF MICHAEL O’Doone . - 294

rpaas
240
249
259
266
283
294

THE GIRL BEYOND THE
TRAIL

CHAPTER I

A WOMAN’S LAUGHTER

IF you had stood thes in the edge of the black spruce
forest, with the wind moaning dismally through the
twisting trees—midnight of deep December—the Trans-
continental would have iooked like a thing of fire; dull
fire, glowing with a smouldering warmth, but of strange
ghostliness and out of place. It was a weird shadow,
helpless and without motion, and black as the half
Arctic night save for that band of illumination that cut
it in twain from the first coach to the last, with a space
like an inky hyphen where the bay gage cai ‘.y. Out
of the north came armies of snow-leden c vads that
scudded just above the earth, ana with these clouds
came now and then a shrieking mec'crv of wind to
taunt this stricken creation oy ~:an and the creatures it
sheltered—men and women who had begun to shiver,
and whose tense, white faces stared with increasing
anxiety out into the mysterious darkness of the night
that hung like a sable curtain ten feet fror: the car
windows.

For three hours those faces had peered out into the
night. Many of the prisoners in the snow-bound

SFR CONES tne pester ameNC RE?

Pitta aga te

The Girl Beyond the Trail

coaches had enjoyed the experience somewhat at first,
for there is a pleasing and indefinable thrill to unex-
pected adventure, and this, for a brief spell, had been
adventure de luxe. There had been warmth and light,
men’s laughter, women’s voices, and children’s play.
But the loudest jester among the men was now silent,
huddled deep in his great coat; and the young woman
who had clapped her hands in silly ecstasy when it was
announced that the train was snow-bound, was weeping
and shivering by turn. It was cold—so cold that the
snow which came Sweeping and swirling with the wind
was like granite-dust ; it clicked, clicked, clicked against
the glass—a bombardment of untold billions of in-
finitesimal projectiles fighting to break in. In the edge
of the forest it was Probably forty degrees below zero.
Within the coaches there still remained some little
warmth. The burning lamps radiated it, and the pres-
ence of many people added to it. But it was cold, and
growing colder. A grey coating of congealed breath
covered the car windows. A few men had given their
outer coats to women and children. These men looked
most frequently at their watches. The adventure de
luxe was becoming serious.

For the twentieth time a Passing trainman was asked
the same question.

“The good Lord only knows,” he growled down into
the face of a young woman whose prettiness would have
enticed the most chivalrous attention from him earlier in
the evening. “Engine and tender been gone three
hours, and the divisional point only twenty miles up
the line. Should have been back with help long ago.
Hell, ain’t it?”

The young woman did not reply, but her round

A Woman’s Laughter

mouth formed a quick and silent approbation of his
final remark.

“‘ Three hours! ’’ the trainman continued his growl-
ing, as he went on with his lantern. ‘“That’s the hell o’
railroading it along the edge of the Arctic. When you
git snowed in you’re snowed in, an’ there ain’t no two
ways about it!”

He paused at the smoking compartment, thrust in
his head for a moment, passed on and slammed the door
of the car after him as he went into the next coach.

In that smoking compartment there were two men,
facing each other across the narrow space between the
two seats. They had not looked up when the trainman

_ thrust in his head. They seemed, as one leaned over
_ towards the other, wholly oblivious of the storm.

It was the older man who bent forward. He was
about fifty. The hand that rested for a moment on
David Raine’s knee was red and knotted. It was the
hand of a man who had lived his life in struggling with

_ the wilderness. And the face, too, was of such a man;

a face coloured and toughened by the tanning of wind
and blizzard and hot northern sun, with eyes cobwebbed
about by a myriad of fine lines that spoke of years spent
under the strain of those things. He was not a large
man. He was shorter than David Raine. There was a
slight droop to his shoulders. Yet about him there was
a strength, a suppressed energy ready to act, a red-
blooded eagerness for life and its daily mysteries which
the other and younger man did not possess. Through-
out many thousands of square miles of the great
northern wilderness this older man was known as Father
Roland, the missioner.

His companion was not more than thirty-eight.
3

The Girl Beyond the Trail

Perhaps he was a year or two younger. It may be that
the wailing of the wind outside, the strange voices that
were in it, and the chilling gloom of their little com-
partment made of him a more Striking contrast to
Father Roland than he would have been under other
conditions. His eyes were a clear and Steady grey as
they met Father Roland’s. They were eyes that one
could not easily forget. Except for his eyes he was like
a man who had been sick, and was still sick. The mis-
sioner had made his own guess, and now, with his hand
on the other’s knee, he said:

“And you say that you are afraid for this friend of
yours?”

David Raine nodded his head. Lines deepened a
little about his mouth.

“Yes, I am afraid.” Fora moment he turned to the
night. A fiercer volley of the little snow-demons beat
against the window, as though his pale face just beyond
their reach stirred them to greater fury. “I have a most
disturbing inclination to worry about him,’’ he added,
and shrugged his shoulders slightly.

He faced Father Roland again.

“Did you ever hear of a man losing himself?” he
asked. “I don’t mean in the woods, or in a desert, or
by going mad. I mean in that other way—heart, body,
soul; losing one’s grip, you might call it, until there
was no earth to stand on. Did you?”

“Yes—many years ago—I knew of a man who lost
himself in that way,” replied the missioner, straighten-
ing in his seat. “But he found himself again. And
this friend of yours? I am interested. This is the first
time in three years that I have been down to the edge of
civilisation, and what you have to tell will be different

A Woman’s Laughter

—vastly different from what I know. If you are betray-
ing nothing would you mind telling me his story ?”

“It is not a pleasant story,” warned the younger
man. “And on such a night as this——”

“It may be that one can see more clearly into the
depths of misfortune and tragedy,” interrupted the mis-
sioner quietly.

A faint flush rose into David Raine’s pale face.
There was something of nervous eagerness in the clasp
of his fingers upon his knees.

‘* Of course, there is the woman,”’ he said.

“Yes, of course, the woman.”

“Sometimes I haven’t been quite sure whether this
man worshipped the woman or the woman’s beauty,”
David went on, with a strange glow in his eyes. “He
loved beauty. And this woman was beautiful, almost
too beautiful for the good of one’s soul, I guess. And
he must have loved her, for when she went out of his
life it was as if he had sunk into a black pit from out of
which he could not rise. I have asked myself often if
he would have loved her had she been less beautiful,
even quite plain, and I have answered myself as he
answered that question, in the affirmative. It was born
in him to worship wherever he loved at all. Her beauty
made a certain sort of completeness for him. He
treasured that. He was proud of it. He counted him-
self the richest man in the world because he possessed
it. But deep under his worship of her beauty he loved
her. Tam more and more sure of that, and I am equally
sure that time will prove it—that he will never rise again
with his old hope and faith out of that black pit into
which he sank when he came face to face with the
realisation that there were forces in life—in Nature,

no]

The Girl Beyond the Trail

perhaps—more potent than his love and his own Strong
will.”

Father Roland nodded.

“TI understand,” he said, and he sank back farther
in his corner by the window, so that his face was
shrouded a little in shadow. “This other man loved a
woman, too. And she was beautiful. He thought she
was the most beautiful thing in the world. It is great
love that makes beauty.”

“But this woman—my friend’s wife—was so beauti-
ful that even the eyes of other women were fascinated
by her. I have seen her when it seemed as though she
must have come fresh from the hands of angels; and at
first, when my friend was the happiest man in the world,
he was fond of telling her that it must have been angels
who put the colour in her face and the wonderful golden
fires in her shining hair. It wasn’t his love for her
that made her beautiful. She was beautiful.”

“And her soul?” softly questioned the shadowed
lips of the missioner.

The other’s hands tightened slowly.

“In making her the angels forgot a soul, I guess,”
he said.

“Then your friend did not love her.” The little
forest missioner’s voice was quick and decisive.
“There can be no love where there is not a soul.”

“That is impossible. He did love her. I know it.”

“T still disagree with you. Without knowing your
friend, I say that he worshipped her beauty. There
were others who worshipped that same loveliness—
others who did not possess her, and who would have
bartered their souls for her had they possessed souls to
barter. Is that not true?”

7 A Woman’s Laughter
4

: “Yes, there were others. But to understand you
1 must have known my friend before he sank down into
the pit—when he was still a man. He was a tremendous
| student. His fortune was sufficient to give him both
’ time and means for the pursuits he loved. He had his
| great library, and adjoining it a laboratory. He wrote
books which few people read because they were filled
* with facts and old theories. He believed that the world
+ was very old, and that there was less profit for man in
‘ discovering new luxuries for an artificial civilisation
_ than in re-discovering a few of the great laws and
~ miracles buried in the dust of the pas: He believed
A that the nearer we get to the beginning of things, and
* not the farther we drift, the clearer comprehension can
we have of earth and sky and God, and the meaning of
~ it all. He did not consider it an argument for Progress
» that Christ and His disciples knew nothing of the tele-
* phone, of giant engines run by steam, of electricity, or
of instruments by which man could send messages for
~ thousands of miles through space. His theory was that

_ the patriarchs of old held a closer touch on the pulse of
~ Life than progress in its present forms will ever bring
- to us. He was not a fanatic. He was not a crank.
’ He was young, and filled with enthusiasm. He loved
children. He wanted to fill his home with them. But
his wife knew that she was too beautiful for that—and
they had none.”

He had leaned a little forward, and had pulled his
- hat a trifle over his eyes. There was a moment’s lull
_ in the storm, and it was so quiet that each could hear
_ the ticking of Father Roland’s big silver watch.
Then he said :
“TI don’t know why I tell you all this, father, unless
7

i ai ae

ats

LPL:

eT lade ed aT an

«J

The Girl Beyond the Trail

it is to relieve my own mind. There can be no hope
that it will benefit my friend. And yet it cannot harm
him. It seems very near to sacrilege to put into words
what I am going to say about—his wife. Perhaps there
were extenuating conditions for her. I have tried to
convince myself of that, just as he tried to believe it,
It may be that a man who is borr into this age must
consider himself a misfit unless he Can tune himself in
sympathy with its manner of life. He cannot be too
critical, I guess. If he is to exist in a certain social
order of our civilisation unburdened by great doubts
and deep glooms, he must not shiver when his wife
tinkles her champagne glass against another. He must
learn to appreciate the Sinuous beauties of the cabaret
dancer, and must train himself to take no offence when
he sees shimmering wines gushing down white throats.
He musi train himself to many things, just as he trains
himself to classical music and grand opera. To do
these things he must forget, as much as he can, the
Sweet melodies and the sweeter women who are sinking
into oblivion together. He Must accept life as a grand
Piano tuned by a new Sort of tuning master, and
unless he can dance to its music he is a misfit. That is
what my friend said—to extenuate her. She fitted into
life splendidty. He was in the other groove. She
loved light, laughter, wine, Song, excitement. He, the
Misfit, loved his books, his work, and his home. His
greatest joy would have been to go with her, hand in
hand, through some wonderful cathedral Pointing out
its ancient glories and mysteries to her. He wanted
aloneness—just they two. Such was his idea of love.
And she—wanted the other things. You understand,
father? The thing grew, and at last he saw that she
8

A Woman’s Laughter

| was getting away from him. Her passion for admira-

, tion and excitement became madness. I know, because
_ I saw it. My friend said that it was madness, even as
_ he was going mad. And yet he did not suspect her.

| If another had told him that she was unclean 1 am sure

he wouid have killed him. Slowly he came to experi-
- ence the agony of knowing that tae woman whom he

mat

_ worshipped did not love him. But this did not lead

_ him to believe that she could love another—or others.
_ Then, one day, he ieft the city. She went with him to
" the train—his wife. She saw him go. She waved her
_ handkerchief at him. And as she stood there she was—
~ glorious.”

* Through partly closed eyes the little missioner saw
“his shoulders tighten, and a hardness settle about his
*mouth. The voice, too, was changed when it went on.
+ It was almost emotionless.

“It’s sometimes curious how the Chief Arbiter of

* things plays His tricks on men—and women, isn’t it,
4 father? There was trouble on the line ahead, and my
‘friend came back. It was unexpected. It was late
_ when he reached his home, and with his night key he
“went in quietly, because he did not want to awaken her.
_,it was very still in the house—until he came to the door
of her room. There was a light. He heard voices—
“very low. He listened. He went in.”

__ There was a terrible silence. The ticking of Father
~Roland’s big silver watch seemed like the tiny beating
7 of a drum.

“What happened then, David?”

_ “My friend went in,” repeated David. His eyes
-Sought Father ..oland’s Squarely, and he saw the ques-
jtionthere. “No, he did not kill them,” he said. “He

: 9

phi pea

The Girl Beyond the Trail

doesn’t know what kept him from killing—the man.
He was a coward, that man. He crawled away like a
worm. Perhaps that was why my friend spared him.
The wonderful part of it was that the woman—his wife—
was not afraid. She stood up in her glorious dishevel-
ment, with that mantle of gold he had worshipped
Streaming about her to her knees, and she laughed!
Yes, she laughed—a mad sort of laugh; a laughter of
fear, perhaps—but—laughter. So he did not kill them.
Her laughter—the man’s cowardice—saved them. He
turned. He closed the door. He left them. He went
out into the night.”

He paused, as though his story was finished.

“And that is—the end?” asked Father Rolard
softly.

“Of his dreams, his hopes, his joy in life—yes, that
was the end.”

“But of your friend’s story? What happened after
that?”

“A miracle, I guess,” replied David hesitatingly, as
though he could not quite understand what had hap-
pened after that. “You see, this friend of mine was
not of the vacillating and irresolute sort. I had always
given him credit for that—credit for being a man who
would measure up to a situation. He was quite an
athlete, and enjoyed boxing and fencing and swimming.
If at any time in his life he could have conceived of a
Situation such as he encountered in his wife’s room he
would have lived in the moral certainty of killing the
man. And when the situation did come, was it not a
miracle that he should walk out into the night leaving
them not only unharmed, but together? I ask you,
father—was it not a miracle ?”

A Woman’s Laughter

Father Roland’s eyes were gleaming strangely
under the shadow of his broad-brimmed black hat. He
merely nodded.

“Of course,” resumed David. “It may be that he
_ was too stunned to act. | believe that the laughter—
\ her laughter—acted upon him like a powerful drug.
Instead of plunging him into the passion of a
| murderous desire for vengeance it curiously enough
" anesthetised his emotions. For hours he heard
that laughter. I believe he will never forget it.
_ He wandered the Streets all that night. It was in
_ New York, and he was meeting many people. But he
_ did not notice them. When morning came he was on
+ Fifth Avenue, many miles from his home. He wan-
- dered down town in a constantly growing human
_ Stream, whose noise and bustle and many-keyed voice
_ acted on him like a tonic. For the first time he aske.’
_ himself what he would do. Stronger and stronger g-ew
~ the desire in him to return, to face again that Situation
_in his home. I believe that he would have done this—I
believe that the red blood in him would have meted out
_ Its own punishment had he not turned just in time, and

at just the right plice. He found himself in front of
_ The Little Church Around the Corner, nestling in its
© hiding-place just off the Avenue. He remembered its
‘restful quiet, the coolness of its Shadowy aisles and
alcoves. He was exhausted, and he went in. He sat
= down facing the chancel, and as his eyes became accus-
3 tomed to the gloom, he saw that the broad, low dais in
front of the Organ was banked with great masses of
“hydrangeas. There had been a wedding, probably the
evening before. My friend told me of the thickening
2 that came in his throat, of the Strange, terrible throb
z B Ir

The Girl Beyond the Trail

in his heart 1s he sat there alone—the only soul in the
church—and stared at those hydrangeas. Hydrangeas
had been their own wedding flower, father. And
then——”

For the first time there was something like a break
in the younger man’s voice.

“My friend thought he was alone,” he went on.
“But someone had come out like a shadow beyond the
chancel railing, and of a sudden, beginning wonderfully
low and sweet, the great organ began to fill the church
with its melody. The organist, too, thought he was
alone. He was a little, old man, his shoulders thin
and drooped, his hair white. But in his soul there must
have been a great love and a great peace. He played
‘The Rosary.’ When he was done he rose and went
away as quietly as he had come, and for a long time
after that my friend sat there—alone. Something new
was born in him, something which I hope will grow, and
comfort him in the years to come. When he went out
into the city again the sun was shining. He did not
go home. He did not see the woman—his wife—
again. He-has never seen her since that night when
she stood up in her dishevelled beauty and laughed at
him. Even the divorce proceedings did not bring them
together. I believe that he treated her fairly. Through
his attorneys he turned over to her a half of what he
possessed. Then he went away. That was a year ago.
In that year I know that he has fought desperately to
bring himself back into his old health of mind and
body, and I am quite sure that he has failed.”

He paused, his story finished. He drew the brim
of his hat lower over his eyes, and then he rose to his
feet. His build was slim and clean-cut. He was

A Woman’s Laughter

perhaps five feet ten inches in height, which was four
inches taller than the little missioner. His shoulders
were of a good breadth, his waist and hips of an athletic
slimness. But his clothes hung with a certain loose-
ness. His hands were unnaturally thin, i:nd in his face
still hovered the shadows of sickness, and of mental
suffering.

Father Roland stood beside him now with eyes that
shone with a deep understanding. In the sputter of the
lamp above their heads the two men clasped hands, and
the little missioner’s grip was like the grip of iron.

“David, I’ve preached a Strange code through the
wilderness for many a long year,” he said, and his voice
was vibrant with a strong emotion. “I’m not Catholic
and I’m not Church of England. I’ve got no religion
that wears a name. I’m simply Father Roland, and all
these years I’ve helped to bury the dead in the forests,
an’ nurse the sick, an’ marry the living, an’ it may be
that I’ve learned one thing better than most of you who
live down in civilisation. And that’s how to find your-
self when you’re down and out. Boy, will you come
with me?”

Their eyes met. A fiercer gust of the storm beat
against the window. They could hear the wind wailing
in the tic2s outside.

“It was your story that you told me,” said Father
Roland, his voice barely above a whisper. “It was
your story, David?”

“Yes, it was my story, father.”

“And she—was your wife?”

“Yes, she was my wife.”

Suddenly David freed his hand from the little
missioner’s clasp. He had Stopped something that was

The Girl Beyond the Trail

almost a cry on his lips. He pulled t.i: hat still lower
over his eyes, and went through the avor out into the
main part of the coach.

Father Roland did not follow. Some of the ruddi-
ness had gone from his cheeks, and as he stood facing
the door through which David had disappeared a
smouldering fire began to burn far back in his eyes;
and atter a few moments this fire died out, and his face
was grey and haggard as he sat down again in his
corner. His hands unclenched. With a great sigh his
nead drooped forward on his chest, and for a long time
he sat thus, his eyes and face lost in shadow, and one
would not have known that he was breathing.

CHAPTER II
“WILL YOU CoMF WITH ME?”

HALF a dozen times that night David had walked from
end to end of the five Snow-bound coaches that made up
the Transcontinental. He believed that for him it was

Otherwise a sleeping-car would have been picked up at
the next divisional point, and he would not have un-
burdened himself to Father Roland. They would not
have sat up until that late hour in the smoking compart-

tragedy that had, in some mysterious way, unsealed his

compelled to tell it, coldly and without visible emotion,
to gain his own freedom. He had meant to keep it to
himself always. And of a Sudden it had all come out.
He was not Sorry. He was glad. Ee was amazed at
the change in himself. That day had been a terrible
day for him. He could not get her out of his mind.
Now a depressing hand seemed to have lifted itself from

had met a man, and from the soul of that man there had

reached out to him the Spirit of a deep and comforting

Strength. He would have revolted at compassion and
15

The Girl Beyond the Trail

words of pity would have shamed him. Father Roland
had given voice to neither of these. But the grip of
his hand had been like the grip of an iron man.

In the third coach David sat down in an empty seat.
For the first time in many months there was the thrill
of something in his blood which he could not analyse.
What had the little missioner meant when, with that
wonderful grip of his knotted hand, he had said: “I’ve
learned one thing better than most of you who live
down in civilisation. And that’s how to find yourself
when you’re down and out?” And what had he meant
when he added: “ Will you come with me?” Go with
him? Where?

There came a sudden crash of the storm against the
window, a shrieking blast of wind and snow, and David
stared out into the night. He could see nothing. It
was a black chaos outside. But he could hear. He
could hear the wailing and moaning of that wind in the
trees, and he almost fancied that it was not darkness
alone that shut out his vision, but the thick walls of the .
forest.

Was that what Father Roland had meant? Had
he asked him to go with him into that?

His face touched the cold glass. He stared harder.
That morning Father Roland had boarded the train at
a wilderness station and had taken a seat beside him.
They had become acquainted. And later the little
missioner had told him how those vast forests reached
without a break for hundreds of miles into the mys-
terious North. He loved them, even as they lay cold
and white outside the windows. There was gladness
in his voice when he had said that he was going back
into them. They were a part of his world—a world of

“Will You Come with Me?”

“mystery and savage glory” he had called it, stretch-
ing for a thousand miles to the edge of the Arctic, and
fifteen hundred from Hudson’s Bay to the western
mountains. And to-night he had said: “Will you
come with me?”

David’s pulse quickened. A thousand little snow-
demons beat in his face to challenge his courage. The
wind swept down, as if enraged at the thought in his
mind, and scooped up volley after volley of drifting
snow and hurled them at him. There was only the thin
glass between. It was like the defiance of a living
thing. It threatened him. It dared him. It invited
him out like a great bully, with a brawling show of
fists. He had always been more or less pusillanimous
in the face of winter. He disliked cold. He hated
snow. But this that beat and shrieked at him outside
the window had set something stirring strangely within
him. It was a desire, whimsical and undecided at first,
to thrust his naked face out into that darkness and
feel the sting of the wind and snow. It was Father
Roland’s world. And Father Roland had invited him
to enter it. That was the curious part of the Situation,
as it was impressed upon him with his face flattened
against the window. The little forest missioner had
invited him, and the night was dating him. For a
single moment the incongruity of it all made him forget
himself, and he laughed—a chuckling, half-broken and
out-of-tune sort of laugh. It was the first time in a year
that he had forgotten himself anywhere near to a point
resembling laughter, and in the sudden and inexplicable
spontaneity of it he was startled. He turned quickly,
as though someone at his side had laughed and
he was about to demand an explanation. He looked

The Girl Beyond the Trail

across the aisle, and his eyes met squarely the eyes
of a woman.

He saw nothing but the eyes at first. They were
big, dark, questing eyes—eyes that had in them a
hunting look, as though in his face they hoped to find
the answer to a great question. Never in his life had he
seen eyes that were so haunted by a great unrest, or that
held in their lustrous depths the smouldering glow of a
deeper grief. Then the face added itself to the eyes.
It was not a young face. The woman was past forty.
But this age did not impress itself over a strange and
appealing beauty in her countenance which was like the
beauty of a flower whose petals were falling. Before
David had seen more than this she turned her eyes from
him slowly and doubtfully, as if not quite convinced
that she had found what she sought, and faced the dark-
ness beyond her own side of the car.

David was puzzled, and he looked at her with still
deeper interest. Her seat was turned so that it was
facing him across the aisle, three seats ahead, and he
could look at her without conspicuous effort or rude-
ness. Her hood had slipped down and hung by its long
scarf about her shoulders. She leaned toward the
window, and as she stared out her chin rested in the
cup of her hand. He noticed that her hand was thin,
and that there was a shadowy hollow in the white pallor
of her cheek. Her hair was heavy, and done in thick
coils that glowed dully in the lamplight. It was a deep
brown, almost black, shot through with little silvery
threads of grey.

For a few moments David withdrew his gaze, sub-
oonsciously ashamed at the directness of his scrutiny.
But after a little his eyes drifted back to her. Her

“Will You Come with Me?”

head had sunk forward a little, and he caught now a
pathetic droop to her shoulders, and he fancied that he
Saw a little shiver run through her. Just as a short
time before he had felt the desire to thrust his face out
into the night he felt now an equally unaccountable
impulse to speak to her, and ask her if he could in any
way add to her comfort. But he could see no excuse for
this presumptuousness in himself. If she was in dis-
tress it was not of a physical sort for which he might
have suggested his services as a remedy. She was
neither hungry nor cold, for there was a basket at her
side in which he had a glimpse of broken bits of food,
and at her back, draped over the seat, was a heavy
beaver-skin coat.

He rose to his feet with the intention of returning
to the smoking compartment in which he had left
Father Roland. His movement seemed to rouse the
woman.

Again her dark eyes met his own. They looked
Straight up at him as he stood in the aisle, and he
stopped. Her lips trembled.

“Are you—acquainted—between here and Lac
Seul ?” she asked.

Her voice had in it the same haunting mystery that
he had seen in her eyes, the same apprehension, the
same hope, as though some curious and indefinable
instinct was telling her that in this Stranger she was
very near to the thing which she was seeking.

“Tam a stranger,” he said. “This is the first time
I have ever been in this country.”

She sank back, the look of hope in her face dying
out like a passing flash.

“IT thank you,” she murmured. “I thought—

The Girl Beyond the Trail

perhaps—-you might know of a man whom I am seek-
ing—a man by the name of Michael O’Doone.”

She did not expect him to speak again. She drew
her heavy coat about her and turned her face again
toward the window. There was nothing that he could
say, nothing that he could do, and he went bac* to
Father Roland.

He was in the last coach when a sound came to him
faintly. It was too sharp for the wailing of the storm.
Others heard it and grew suddenly erect, with tense and
listening faces. The young woman with the round
mouth gave a little gasp. A man pacing back and
forth in the aisle stopped as if at the point of a bayonet.

It came again.

The heavy-jowled man who had taken the adventure
as a jest at first, and who had rolled himself in his great-
coat like a hibernating woodchuck, unloosed his voice
in a rumble of joy.

“It’s the whistle!” he announced. “The damned
thing’s coming at last!”

CHAPTER III

DAVID’S DECISION

DavID came up quietly to the door of the smokir.g com-
partment where he had left Father Roland. He looked
in. The little missioner was huddled in his corner near
the window. His head hung heavily forward and the
shadow of his black Stetson concealed his face. He was
apparently asleep. His hands, with their strangely
developed joints and fingers, lay loosely upon his knees.
For a full half minute David looked at him without
moving or making a sound, and as he looked something
warm and living seemed to reach out from the lonely
figure of the wilderness preacher that filled him with a
strangely new feeling of companionship. Again he
made no effort to analyse the change in himself; he
accepted it as one of the two or three inexplicable
phenomena this night and the storm had » soduced for
him, and was chiefly concerned in the fact that he was
no longer oppressed by that torm: f aloneness which
had been a part of his nights an. days for so many
months. He was about to speak when he made up his
mind not to disturb the other. So certain was he that
Father Roland was asleep that he drew away from tie
door on the tips of his toes and re-entered the coach.
He did not stop in the first or the second cars,
though there were plenty of empty seats, and people
were rousing themselves into more cheerful activity.
He passe~ through one and then the other to the third
21

The Girl Beyond the Trai:

coach, and sat down when he came to the seat he had
ferme’ occupied. He did not look at the woman
aruss . e aisle immediately. He did not want her to
St>;ec: chat he had come back for that p:rpose. When
his eyes did seek her in a casual sort of way he was
disappointed.

She was almost covered in her coat. He caught
only the gleam of her thick dark hair, and the shape of
one slim hand, white as paper in the lamp-glow. He
knew that she was not asleep for he saw her shoulders
move, and the hand shifted its position to hold the coat
closer about her. The whistling of the approaching
engines, which he could hear distinctly now, had no
apparent effect on her. For ten minutes he sat Staring
at all he could see of her—the dark glow of her hair
and that one ghostly white hand. He moved, he
shuffled his feet, he coughed—he made sure that she
knew he was there, but she did not look up. He was
sorry that he had not brought Father Roland with him
in the first place, for he was certain that if the little
missioner had seen the grief and the despair in her eyes
—-the hope almost burned out—he would have gone to
her and said things which he had found it impossible
to say when the opportunity had come to him. He rose
again from his seat as the powerful snow-engine and
its consort coupled on to the train. The shock almost
flung him off his feet. Even then she did not raise her
head.

A second time he returned to the smoking compart-
ment.

Father Roland was no longer huddled down in his
corner. He was on his feet, his hands thrust deep down
into his trousers pockets, and he was whistling softly as

Ss or we w TF OU lUhr OD

David’s Decision

David came in. His hat lay on the seat. It was the
first time David had seen his round, rugged, weather-
reddened face without the big Stetson. He looked
younger, and yet older; his face, as David saw it there
in the lamp-glow, had something in the ruddy glow and
deeply lined strength of it that was almost youthful.
But his thick, shaggy hair was very grey. The train
had begun to move. He turned to the window for a
moment, and then looked at David.

“We are under way,” he said. “Very soon I will
be getting off.”

David sat down.

“It is some distance beyond the divisional point
ahead—this cabin where you get off ?” he asked.

“Yes, twenty or twenty-five miles. There is nothing
but a cabin and two or three log out-buildings there—
where Thoreau, the Frenchman, has his fox-pens, as I
told you. It is not a regular stop, but the train will
slow down to throw off my dunnage and give me an easy
jump. My dogs and Indian are with Thoreau.”

“And from there—from Thoreau’s—it is a long
distance to the place you call home?”

The little missioner rubbed his hands in a queer
rasping way. The movement of those rugged hands
and the curious chuckling laugh that accompanied it
radiated a sort of cheer. T hey were expressive of more
than satisfaction.

“It’s a great many miles to my own cabin, but it’s
home—all home—after I get into the forests. My cabin
is at the lower end of God’s Lake, three hundred miles
by dogs and sledge from Thoreau’s—three hundred
miles as straight North as a niskuk flies.”

“A niskuk?” said David.

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“Yes—a grey goose.”

“Don’t you have crows?”

“A few, but they’re as crooked in flight as they are
in morals. They're scavengers, and they hang down
pretty close to the line of rail—close to civilisation,
where there’s a lot of scavenging to be done, you
know.”

For the second time that night David found a laugh
on his lips.

“Then—you don’t like civilisation ?”

“My heart is in the Northland,” replied Father
Roland, and David saw a sudden change in the other’s
face, a dying out of the light in his eyes, a tenseness
that came and went like a flash at the corners of his
mouth. In that same moment he saw the missioner’s
hands tighten, and the fingers knot themselves curiously
and then slowly relax.

One of these hands dropped on David’s shoulder,
and Father Roland became the questioner.

“You have been thinking, since you left me a little
while ago ?” he asked.

“Yes. I came back. But you were asleep.”

“I haven’t been asleep. I have been awake every
minute. I thought once that I heard a movement at
the door, but when I looked up there was no one there.
You told me to-day that you were going west—to the
British Columbia mountains ?”

David nodded. Father Roland sat down beside
him.

“Of course, you didn’t tell me why you weré going,”
he went on. “I have made my own guess since you
told me about the woman, David. Probably you will
never know just why your story has struck so deeply

mene rar of Seapets sana name Rae meee verre nse ets
ocean Tas ea teee y erveantwun Cnterte ny Were erneeer Sev eeetneenn rts Matton

Dial aael

ty verte rae an naan ‘4

MEE REA Ce eae
sess

cepa Ze

David’s Decision

home with me, and why it has seemed to make you
more a son to me than a stranger. I have guessed thet
in ,soiag west you are simply wandering. You are
fighting in a vain and foolish sort of way to run away
from something. Isn’t that it? You are running
away—trying to escape the one thing in the whole wide
world that you cannot lose by flight—and that’s
memory. You can think just as hard in Japan or the
South Sea Islands as you can on Fifth Avenue in New
York, and sometimes the farther away you get the more
maddening your thoughts become. It isn’t travel you
want, David. It’s blood—red blood. And for putting
blood into you, and courage, and the joy of just living
and breathing, there’s nothing on the face of the earth
like—that!”

He reached an arm past David and pointed to the
night beyond the car window.

“You mean the Storm, and the snow——”

“Yes, storm, aad snow, and sunshine, and forests—
the tens of thousands of miles of our Northland that
you've only seen the edge of. That’s what I mean.
But, first of «11 "—and again the little missioner rubbed
his hands in his curious, rasping way—‘first of all,
I’m thinking of the Supper that’s waiting for us at
Thoreau’s. Will you get off and have supper with me
at the Frenchman’s, David? After that, if you decide
not to go up to God’s Lake with me, Thoreau can bring
you and your luggage back to the station with his dog-
team. Such a supper—or breakfast—it will be! I can
smell it now, for I know Thoreau—his fish, his birds,
the tenderest steaks in the forests! I can hear Thoreau
cursing because the train hasn’t come, and I’ll wager

- he’s got fish and caribou tenderloin and Partridges just

The Girl Beyond the Trail

ready for a final turn in the roaster. What do you say?
Will you get off with me?”

“It is a tempting offer to a hungry man, father.”

The little missioner chuckled elatedly.

“Hunger !—that’s the real medicine of the gods,
David, when the belt isn’t drawn too tight. If I want
to know the nature and the quality of a man I ask about
his stomach. Did you ever know of a man who loved
to eat who wasn’t a pretty decent sort? Did you ever
know of a man who loved pie—who’d go out of his way
to get pie—that didn’t have a heart in him bigger’n a
pumpkin? I guess you didn’t. If a man’s got a good
stomach he isn’t a grouch, and he won’t stick a knife
into your back; but if he eats from habit—orx necessity—
he isn’t a beautiful character in the eyes of nature, and
there’s pretty sure to be a cog loose somewhere in his
make-up. I’m a grub-scientist, David. I warn you of
that before we get off at Thoreau’s. I love to eat, and
the Frenchman knows it. That’s why I can smeil
things in that cabin forty miles away.”

He was rubbing his hands so briskly and his face
radiated such joyous anticipation as he talked that
David unconsciously felt the spirit of his enthusiasm.
He had gripped one of Father Roland’s hands and was
pumping it up and down almost before he realised what
he was doing.

“I'll get off with you at Thoreau’s!” he exclaimed.
“And later—if I feel as I do now, and you still want my
conpany, I’ll go on with you into the north country!”

A slight flush rose into his thin cheeks, and his eyes
shone with a freshly kindled enthusiasm. As Father
Roland saw the change in him his two knotted hands
closed over David's.

Bgl: Abia

David’s Decision

“I knew you had a splendid stomach in you from the
momer’ u finished telling me about the woman,” he
cried eaultantly. “I knew it, David. And I do want
your company—I want it as I never wanted the com-
pany of another man!”

“That is the strange part of it,” replied David, a
slight quiver in his voice. He drew away his hands
suddenly, and with a jerk brought himself to his feet.
“Good God—look at me!” he cried. “I am a wreck
physically. It would be a lie if you told me I am not.
See those hands—these arms! I’m down and out. I’m
weak as a dog, and the stomach you speak of is a myth.
I haven’t eaten a square meal in a year. Why do you
want me as a companion? Why do you think it would
be a pleasure for you to drag a decrepit misfit like myself
up into a country like yours? Is it because of your—
your code of faith? Is it because you think you may
save a soul?”

He was breathing deeply. As he excoriated him-
self and bared his weakness the hot blood crept slowly
into his face.

“Why do you want me to go?” he demanded.
“Why don’t you ask some man with red blood in his
veins and a heart that hasn’t been burned out? Why
have you asked me?”

Father Roland made as if to speak, and then caught
himself. Again for a Passing flash there came that
mystericus change in him, a sudden dying out of the
enthusiasm in his eyes and a greyness in his face that
came and went like a shadow of pain. In another
moment he was saying :

“I’m not playing the part of the Good Samaritan,
David. I’ve got a personal and a selfish reason for

Cc 27

| The Girl Beyond the Trail

wanting you with me. It may be possible—just pos-
sible, I say—that I need you even more than you will
’ me.” He held out his hand. “Let me have your
checks and I'll go ahead to the baggage car and arrange
to have your dunnage thrown off with mine at the
Frenchman’s.”

David gave him the checks, and sat down after he
had gone. He began to realise that for the first time
in many months he was taking a deep and growing
interest in matters outside of his own life. The night
and its happenings had kindled a strange fire within
him, and the warmth of this fire ran through his veins
and set his body and his brain tingling curiously. New
forces were beginning to fight his own malady. As he
sat alone after Father Roland had gone his mind had
dragged itself away from the East; he thought of a
woman, but it was the woman in the third coach back.
Her wonderful eyes haunted him—their questing
despair, the strange pain that seemed to burn ‘ike glow-
ing coals in their depths. He had not only seen misery
and hopelessness in them; he had seen tragedy, and they
troubled him. He made up his mind to tell Father
Roland about her when he returned from the baggage
cs -nd take him to her.

tho was Father Roland? For the first time
he ‘mself the question. There was something
of mysic,,y about the little forest missioner that he found
as strange and unanswerable as the thing he had seen in
the eyes of the woman in the third car back. Father
Roland had not been asleep when he looked in quietly
and saw him hunched down in his corner near the win-
dow, just as a little later he had seen the woman
crumpled down in hers. It was as if the same oppress-

a Ns O&O &

eke Oo <<. WY wo

igs

David’s Decision
ing hand had been upon them in those moments. And
why had Father Roland asked him, of all men, to go
with him as a comrade into the North ? Following this he
asked himself the still more puzzling question : Why
had he accepted the invitation ?

He stared out into the night, as if that might hold
an answer ior him. He had not noticed until now that
the storm had ceased its beating against the window.
It was not so black outside. With his face close to the
glass he could make out : : dark wall of the forest.
From the rumble of the trucks under him he knew that
the two engines were making good time. He looked
at his watch. It was a quarter of twelve. They had
been travelling for half an hour, and he figured the
divisional point ahead would be reached by midnight.
It seemed a very short time after that when he heard
the tiny bell in his watch tinkling off the hour of twelve.
The last strokes were drowned in a shrill blast of the
engine whistle, and a moment later he caught the dull
glow of lights in the hollow of a wide curve the train
was making. Father Roland had told him the train
would wait at this point fifteen minutes, and even now
he heard the clanging of hand-bells announcing the fact
ihat hot coffee, sandwiches, and ready-prepared suppers
were awaiting the half-starved passengers. The trucks
grated harshly, the whirring groan of the air-brakes ran
under him like a great Sigh, and suddenly he was look-
ing down into the face of a pop-eyed man who was
clanging a bell with all the Strength of his right arm
under his window, and who with this labour was
emitting a husky din of “Supper—supper ‘ot an’ ready
at The Royal,” in his vain effort to drown the competi-
tion of a stili more raucous voice that was bellowing :

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“’Ot steak an’ liver’n onions at the Queen Alexan-
dry!” As David made no movement the man under
his window stretched up his neck and yelled a personal
invitation. ‘“‘W’y don’t you come out and eat, old
chap? You’ve got fifteen minutes, an’ mebby ’arf an
‘our. Supper—supper ’ot an’ ready at The Royal!”
Up and down the length of the dimly lighted platform
David heard that clangour of bells, and as if determined
to capture his stomach or die, the pop-eyed man never
moved an inch from his window, while behind him
there jostled and hurried an eager and steadily growing
throng of hungry people.

David thought again of the woman in the third
coach back. Was she getting off here, he wondered?
He went to the door of the smoking compartment and
waited another half minute for Father Roland. It was
quite evident his delay was occasioned by some diffi-
culty in the baggage car, a difficulty which perhaps his
own presence might help to straighten out. He hesi-
tated between the thought of joining the missioner and
the stronger impulse to go back into the third coach.
He was conscious of a certain feeling of embarrassment
as he returned for the third time to look at her. He
was not anxious for her to see him again unless Father
Roland were with him. His hesitancy, if it was not
altogether embarrassment, was caused by the fear that
she might quite naturally regard his interest in a wrong
light. He was especially sensitive upon that point, and
had always been. The fact that she was not a young
woman, and that he had seen her dark hair finely
threaded with grey, made no difference with him in his
peculiarly chivalric conception of man’s attitude toward
woman. He did not mean to impress himself upon

oem = ow 6 CG

=~ EY ESO

David’s Decision

her; this time he merely wanted to see if she
had roused herself, or had left the car. At least this
was the trend of isis raental argument as he entered
the third coach.

The car was empty. The woman was gone. Even
the old man whe hel hobbied in on crutches at the last
Station had hobbled out again in response to the clang-
ing bells. When he came to the seat where the woman
had been David paused, and would have turned back
had he not chanced to look out through the window.
He was just in time to catch the swift upturn of a pass-
ing face. It was her face. She saw him and recognised
him; she seemed for a moment to hesitate, her eyes were
filled again with that haunting fire, her lips trembled
as if about to speak—and then, like a mysterious
Shadow, she drifted out of his vision into darkness. For
a space he remained in his bent and Staring attitude,
trying to pierce the gloom into which she had dis-
appeared. As he drew back from the window, wonder-
ing what she must think of him, his eyes fell to the seat
where she had been sitting, and he saw that she had left
something behind.

It was a very thin package, done up in a bit of news-
Paper and tied with red String. He picked it up and
turned it over in his hands. It was five or six inches in
width and perhaps eight in length, and was not more
than half an inch in thickness. The newspaper in
which the object was wrapped was worn until the print
was almost obliterated.

Again he looked out through the window. Was it
a trick of his eyes, he wondered, or did he see once more
that pale and haunting face in the gloom just beyond
thelamp-glow? His fingers closed a little tighter upon

The Girl Beyond the Trail

the thin packet in his hand. At least he had found an
excuse; if she was still there—if he could find her—he
had an adequate apology for going to her. She
had forgotten something; it was simply a matter of
courtesy on his part to return it. As he alighted into
the half foot of snow on the platform he could have
given no other reason for his action. His mind could
Not clarify itself; it had no cohesiveness of Purpose or
of emotion at this particular juncture. It was as if a
Strange and magnetic under-tow was drawing him after
her. And he obeyed the impulse. He began seeking
for her, with the thin packet in his hand.

eee ee ee, a ee

CHAPTER IV

AT THOREAU’S

Davip followed where he fancied he had last seen the
woman’s face and caught himself just in time to keep
from pitching over the edge of the platform. Beyond
that there was a pit of blackness. Surely she had not
gone there ?

Two or three of the bells were still clanging, but
with abated enthusiasm; from the dimly lighted plat-
form, greyish-white in the ghostly flicker of the oil-
lamps, the crowd of hungry passengers was ebbing
swiftly in its quest of food and drink; a last half-hearted
bawling of the virtue to be found in the “ hot steak an’
liver’n bacor “he Queen Alexandry” gave way to a
comforting s; a silence broken only by a growing
clatter of dishus, the subdued wheezing of the engines,
and the raucous voice of a trainman telling the baggage-
man that the hump between his shoulders was not a
head but a knot kindly tied there by his Creator to keep
him from unravelling. Even the Promise of a fight—at
least, of a blow or two delivered in the grey gloom of
the baggage-man’s door, did not turn David from his
quest. When he returned a few minutes later two or
three sympathetic friends were nursing the baggage-
man back into consciousness. He was about to pass the
group when someone gripped his arm, and a familiar
and joyous chuckle sounded in his ear. Father Roland
stood beside him.

The Girl Beyond the Trail

‘Dear Father in Heaven, but it was a turrible blow,
David!’’ cried the little missiorer, his face dancing in
the flare of the baggage-room lamps. “It was a
tremenjous blow—straight out from his shoulder like a
battering-ram, and hard as rock! It put him to sleep
like a baby. Did you see it?”

“I didn’t,” said David, staring at the other in
amazement.

“He deserved it,” explained Father Roland. “I
love to see a good clean blow when it’s delivered in the
right, David. I’ve seen the times when a hard fist was
worth more than a preacher and his prayer.” He was
chuckling delightedly as they turned back to the train.
“The baggage is arranged for,” he added. “They'll
put us off together at the Frenchman’s.”

David had slipped the thin packet into his pocket.
He no longer felt so keenly the desire to tell Father
Rolar * about the woman—at least, not at the present
time. His quest had been futile. The woman had dis-
appeared as completely as though she had actually
floated away into that pit of darkness beyond the far
end of the platrorm. He had drawn but one conclusion.
This place—Graham—-was her home; undoubtedly
friends had been at the station to meet her; even now
she might be telling them, or a husband, or a grown-up
son, of the strange fellow who had stared at her in such
a curious fashion. Disappointment in not finding her
had brought a reaction. He had an inward and un-
comfortable feeling .f having been very silly, and of
having allowed his imagination to get the better of his
common-sense. He had persuaded himself to believe
that she had been in very great distress. He had acted
honestly and with chivalrous intention. And yet, after

rT lh(U VwOlhllhUhwWlhOlUhrD CUS

At Thoreau’s

what had passed between him and Father Roland in
the smoking compartment, and in view of his failure to
establish a proof of his own convictions, he was de-
termined to keep this particular event of the night to
himself.

A loud voice began to announce that the moment of
departure had arrived, and as the passengers began
scrambling back into their coaches Father Roland ted
the way to the baggage car.

“They’re going to let us ride with the dunnage so
there won’t be any mistake or time lost when we get to
Thoreau’s,” he said.

They climbed up into the warm and lighted car, and
after the baggage man in charge had given them a sour
nod of recognition the first thing that David noticed was
his own and Father Roland’s Property stacked up near
the door. His own belongings were a steamer trunk
and two black morocco bags, while Father Roland’s
Share of the pile consisted most’, of boxes and bulging
gunny-sacks that must have weighed close to half a ton.
Near the pile was a Pair of scales, shoved back against
the wall of the car. David laughed queerly as he
nodded toward them. They gave him a rather Satisfy-
ing inspiration. With them he could prove the incon-
gruity of the Partnership that had already begun to
exist between him and the missioner. He weighed him-
self, with Father Roland looking on. The scales
balanced at a hundred and thirty-two.

“And I’m five feet nine in height,” he said dis-
gustedly. “It should be a hundred and sixty. You
See where I’m at!”

“T knew a two-hunded-pound Pig once that worried
himself down to ninety because the man who kept the

The Girl Beyond the Trail

pig also kept skunks,” replied Father Roland with his
odd chuckle. ‘Next to smallpox and a bullet througt
your heart worry is about the blackest, man-killingest
thing on earth, David. See that bag?”

He pointed to one of the bulging gunny-sacks.

“That’s the antidote,” he said. “It’s the best
medicine I know of in the grub line for a man who’s
lost his grip. There’s the makings of three men in
that sack.”

“What is it?” asked David curiously.

The missioner bent over to examine a card attached
to the neck of the bag.

“To be perfectly accurate it contains a hundred and
ten pounds of beans,” he answered.

“Beans! Great heaven! I loathe them!”

“So do most down-and-outs,” affirmed Father Ro-
land cheerfully. “That’s one reason for the peculiar
psychological value of beans. They begin to tell you
when you’re getting weaned away from a lobster palate
and a stuffed-crab stomach, and when you get to the
point where you want ’em on your regular bill of fare
you'll find more fun in chopping down a tree than in
going to a grand opera. But the beans must be cooked
right, David—browned like a nut, juicy to the heart of
‘em, and seasoned alongside a broiling duck or
partridge, or a tender rabbit. Ah!”

The little missioner rubbed his hands ecstatically.

David’s rejoinder, if one was on his lips, was in-
terrupted by a violent cursing. The train was well
under way, and the baggage-master had sat down at a
small table with his back toward them. He had leaped
to his feet now, his face furious, and with another de-
moniac curse he gave the coal-scuttle a kick that sent it

At Thoreau’s

with a bang to the far end of the car. The table was
littered with playing cards.

“Damn ’em—they beat me this time in ten plays!”
he yelled. “They’ve got the devil in ’em! If they
was alive I’d jump on ‘xm! I’ve played this game of
solitaire for nineteen years—I’ve played a million games
—an’ damned if I ever got beat in my life as it’s beat me
since we left Halifax!”

“Dear Heaven!” gasped Father Roland. “Have
you been playing all the way from Halifax ?”

The solitaire-fiend seemed not to hear, and resuming
his seat with a low and ominous muttering, he dealt
himself another hand. In less than a minute he was
on his feet again, shaking the cards angrily under the
little missioner’s nose as though that individual was
entirely accountable for his bad luck.

“Look at that accursed trey o’ hearts!” he de-
manded. “First card, ain’t it? First card! an’ if it
had been the third ’r the sixth ’r the ninth ’r anything
except that confounded Number One I’d have slipped
the game up my sleeve. Ain’t it enough to wrack any
honest man’s soul? I ask you—ain’t it?”

“Why don’t you charge the trey of hearts to the
place that suits you?” asked David innocently. “It
seems to me it would be very easy to move it to third
place in the deck if you want it there.”

The baggage-man’s bulging eyes seemed ready to
pop as he stared at David, and when he saw that David
really meant what he had said a look of unutterable dis-
gust spread over his countenance. Then he grinned—
a sickly and malicious sort of grin.

“Say, mister, you’ve never piayed solitaire, have
you?” he asked.

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“Never,” confessed David.

Without another word the baggage-man hunched
himself over his table, dealt himself another hand, and
not until the train began slowing up for Thoreau’s place
did he rise from his seat or cease his low mutterings and
g umblings. In response to the engineer’s whistle he
jumped to his feet and rolled back the car door.

“Now step tively!” he commanded. “ We've got no
orders to stop her, and we’ll have to dump this stuff
out on the move!”

As he spoke he gave the hundred and ten pounds of
beans a heave out into the night. Father Roland jumped
to his assistance, and David saw his steamer trunk and
his handbags follow the beans.

“The snow is soft and deep an’ there won’t be any
harm done,” Father Roland assured him as he tossed
out a fifty-pound box of prunes.

David heard sounds now—a man’s shout, a fiendish
tonguing of dogs, and above that a steady chorus of
yapping, which he guessed came from the foxes. Sud-
denly a lantern gleamed, then a second and a third, and
a dark, bearded face—a fierce and piratical-looking face—
began running along outside the door. The last box
and the last bag went off, and with a sudden moverient
the trainman hauled David to the door.

“Jump!” he cried.

The face and the lantern had fallen behind, and it
was as black as an abyss outside. With a mute prayer
David launched himself much as he had seen the bags
and the boxes sent out. He fell with a thud in a soft
blanket of snow. He looked up in time to see the little
missioner flying out like a curious gargoyle through the
door; the baggage-man’s lantern waved, the engineer’s

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At Thoreau’s

whistle gave a responding screech, and the train
whirred past. Not until the tail-light of the last coach
was receding like a great red firefly in the gloom did
David get up. Father Roland was on his feet, and
down the track came two of the three lanterns on the run.

It was all unusually weird and strangely interesting
to David. He was breathing deeply. There was a
warmth in his bedy which was new to him. It struck
him all at once, as he heard Father Roland crunching
through the snow, that he was experiencing an entirely
new phase of life—a life he had read about at times and
dreamed of at other times, but which he had never come
physically in contact with. The yapping of the foxes,
the crying of the dogs, those lanterns hurrying down
the track, the blackness of the night, and the strong
perfume of balsam in the cold air—an odour that he
breathed deep into his lungs like the fumes of an ex-
hilarating drink—quickened sharply a pulse that a few
hours before he thought was almost lifeless. He had no
time to ask himself whether he was enjoying these new
sensations; he felt only the thrill of them as Thoreau
and the Indian came up out of the night with their
lanterns. In Thoreau himself, as he stood a moment
later in the glow of the lanterns, was embodied the
living, breathing spirit of this new world into which
David's leap out of the baggage car had plunged him.
He was picturesquely of the wild, his face darkly
bearded, his ivory-white teeth shining as he smiled a
welcome, his tri-coloured Hudson’s Bay coat of wool,
with its frivolous red fringes thrown open at the throat,
the bushy tail of his fisher-skin cap hanging over a
shoulder—and with these things his voice rattling forth
in French and half Indian his joy that Father Roland

The Girl Beyond the Trail

was not dead, but had arrived at last. Behind him
Stood the Indian, without a mobile expression, dark,
Shrouded, a bronze sphinx of mystery. But his eyes
shone as the little missioner greeted him—shone so
darkly and so full of ‘re that for a moment David was
fascinated by them. Then he was introduced.

“IT am happy to meet you, m’sieu,” said the French-
man. His race was softly polite, even in the forests,
and Thoreau’s voice, now mildly subdued, came
Strangely from the bearded wildness of his face. The
grip of his hand was like Father Roland’s—something
David had never felt among his friends back in the city.
He winced in the darkness, and for a long time after-
ward his fingers tingled.

It was then that David made his first break in the
etiquette of ‘= forests—a fortunate one, as time proved.
He did rot ow that shaking hands with an Indian
was a matter of some formality, and so when Father
Roland said, “This is Mukoki, who has been with me
for many years,” David thrust out his fist. Mukoki
looked him straight in the eyes for a moment, and then
his blanket-coat parted and his slim, dark hand reached
out. Having received his lesson from both the mis-
sioner and the Frenchman, David put into his grip all
the strength that was in him—the warmest hand-shake
Mukoki had ever received in his life from a white man,
with the exception of his master the missioner.

The next thing David heard was Father Rx land’s
voice inquiring eagerly about supper. Thoreau’s reply
was in French.

“He says the cabin is like the inside of a great roast
duck,” chuckled the missioner. “Come, David! We'll
leave Mukoki to gather up our freight.”

At Thoreau’s

A short walk up the track, and David saw the cabin.
It was back in the shelter of the black Spruce and balsam,
its two windows that faced ...e railroad warmly illumined
by the light inside. The foxes had ceased their yapping,
but the snarling and howling of dogs became more
bloodthirsty as they drew nearer, and David could hear
an ominous clinking of chains and snapping of teeth.
A few steps more and they were at the door. Thoreau
himself opened it, and stood back.

“Aprés vous, m’sieu,” he saic, his white teeth shin-
ing at David. “It would give me bad luck, and pos-
sibly all of my foxes would die, if I went into my house
ahead of a stranger.”

David went in. An Indian woman Stood with her
back to him, bending over a table. She was as slim as
a reed, and had the longest and sleckest black hair he
had ever seen, done in two heavy braids that hung down
her back. In another moment she had turned her round
brown face, and her teeth and eyes were shining, but
she spoke no word. Thoreau did not introduce his
wild-flower wife. He had opened his cabin door, and
had let David enter before him, which was accepting
him as a friend in his home, and therefore, in his under-
standing of things, an introduction was unnecessary and
out of place. Father Roland chuckled, rubbed his
hands briskly, and said something to the woman in her
own language that made her giggle shyly. It was
contagious. David smiled. Father Roland’s face was
crinkled with little ines cf joy. The Frenchman’s
teeth gleamed. In the big cook-stove the fire snapped
and crackled and Popped. ™farie opened the stove door
to put in more wood, and her face shone rosy and her
teeth were like milk in the fire-flash. Thoreau went to

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

her and laid a big, heavy hand fondly on her sleek
head, and said something in soft Cree that brought
another giggle into Marie’s throat, like the curious
notes of a bird.

In David there was a slow and wonderful awaken-
ing. Every fibre of him was stirred by the cheer of
this cabin builded from logs rough-hewn out of the
forest; his body, weakened by the months of mental and
physical anguish which had been his burden, seemed
filled with a new strength. Unconsciously he was smil-
ing, and his soul was rising up out of its dark prison as
he saw Thoreau’s big hand stroking Marie’s shining
hair. He was watching Thoreau when, at a word from
Marie, the Frenchman suddenly swung open the oven
door and pulled forth a huge roasting-pan.

At sight of the pan Father Roland gave a joyous
cry, and he rubbed his hands so briskly that a little
shiver ran up David’s back. They had smelled the rich
aroma of that pan; a delicious whiff of it had struck their
nostrils even before the cabin door had opened—that and
a perfume of coffee; but not until now did the fragrance
of the oven and the pan smite them with all of its
potency.

“Mallards fattened on wild rice, and a rabbit—my
favourite—a rabbit roasted with an onion where his
heart was, and well peppered!” gloated the little mis-
sioner. ‘Dear Heaven, was there ever such a mess to
put strength into a man’s gizzard, David? And coffee!
—this coffee of Marie’s! It is more than ambrosia. It
is an elixir which transforms a cup into a fountain of
youth. Take off your coat, David—take off your coat
and make yourself at home!”

And as David stripped off his coat, and foilowed that

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At Thoreau’s

with his collar and tie, he thought of his steamer trunk
with its tuxedo and full dress, its piqué shirts and poke
collars, its suéde gloves and kid-topped patent leathers—
and he felt the tips of his ears beginning to burn. He
was sorry now that he had given the missioner the check

to that trunk.

A minute later he was sousing his face in a big tin
wash-basin, and then drying it on a towel that had once
been a burlaps bag. But he had noticed that it was
clean—as clean as the pi~'-flushed face of Marie. And
the Frenchman himseli ~ h all of his hair, and his
beard, and his rougi-we .. clothing, was as clean as the
burlaps towelling. seing a stranger suddenly plunged
into a life entirely new to him, these things impressed
themselves upon David.

When they sat down to the table—Thoreau sitting
for company, and Marie standing behind them—he was
at a loss at first to know how to begin. His plate was
of tin and a foot in diameter, and on it was a three-pound
mallard duck dripping with juice and as brown as a
ripe hazel-nut. He made a business of arranging his
sleeves and drinking a glass of water while he watched
the famished little missioner. With a chuckle of de-
light Father Roland plunged the tines of his fork hilt-
deep into the breast of the duck, seized a leg in his
fingers, and dismembered the luscious anatomy on his
plate with a deft twist and a sudden pull. With his
teeth buried in the leg he !ooked across at David. David
had eaten duck before ; that is, he had eaten of the family
Anas boschas disguised in thick gravies and high-
brow sauces, but this duck that he ate at Thoreau’s
table was like no other duck that he had ever tasted in
all his life. He began with misgiving at the three-

- 43

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2
The Girl Beyond the Trai!

pound carcass, and he ended with an entirely new feeling
of stuffed satisfaction. He explored at will into its
structure, and he found succulent morsels which he had
never dreamed of as existing in this particular vird, for
his experience had never before gone beyond lez of duck
and thinly carved slices of breast of duck, at from eighty
cents to a dollar and a quarter an order. Ile would
have been ashamed of himself when he finished had it
not been that Father Roland seemed only at the begin-
ning when he was done, and was turning the vigour of
his attack from duck to rabbit and onion. From then
on David kept him company by drinking a third cup
of coffee.

When he was finally done Father Roland settled
back with a sigh of content, and drew a worn buckskin
pouch from one of the voluminous pockets of his
trousers. Out of this he produced a black pipe and
tobacco. At the same time Thoreau was filling and
lighting his own. In his studies and late-hour work at
home David himself had been a pipe-smoker, but of
late his pipe had been distasteful to him, and it had been
many weeks since he had indulged in anything but
cigars and an occasional cigarette. He looked at the
placid satisfaction in the little missioner’s face, and
saw Thoreau’s head wreathed in smoke, and he felt. for
the first time in those weeks the return of his old desire.
While they were eating, Mukoki and another Indian
had brought in his trunk and bags, and he went now
to one of the bags, opened it, and got his own pipe and
tobacco. As he stuffed the bowl of his English brier,
and lighted the tobacco, Father Roland’s glowing face
beamed at him through the fragrant fumes of his
Hudson’s Bay Mixture. Against the wall, a little in

At "Fhovea’s

shadow, so that she would not be a part of their company
or whatever conversation they might have, Marie had
seated herself, her round chin in the cup of her brown
hand, her dark eyes shining at this comfort and satis-
faction of men. Such scenes as this amply repaid her
for all her toil in life. She was happy. ‘There was
content in this cabin. David felt it. It impinged itself
upon him, and through him, ina strange and mysterious
way. Within these log walls he felt the presence of
that spirit—the joy of companionship and of life—which
had so terribly eluded and escaped him in his own home
of wealth and luxury. He heard Marie speak only
once that night—once in a low, soft voice to Thoreau.
She was silent with the silence of the Cree wife in the
presence of a stranger, but he knew that her heart was
throbbing with the swift pulse of happiness, and for
Some reason he was glad when Thoreau nodded proudly
toward a closed door and let him know that she was
amother. Marie heard him, and in that moment David
caught in her face a look that made his heart ache—a
look which should have been a part of his own life, and
which he had missed.

A little later Thoreau led the way into the room
which David was to occupy for the night. It was a
small room, with a sapling partition between it and the
One in which the missioner was to sleep. The fox-
breeder placed a lamp on a table near the bed, and bade
David good night.

» It was past two o’clock, and yet David felt at the
Present moment no desire for sleep. After he had taken
Off his shoes and partially undressed, he sat on the edge
of his bed and allowed his mind to sweep back over the
€¥ents of the past few hours. Again he thought of the
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The Girl Beyond the Trail

woman in the train—the woman with those wonderful
dark eyes and haunting face, and he drew forth from his
coat pocket the package which she had forgotten. He
handled it curiously. He looked at the red string, noted
how tightly the knot was tied, and turned it over and
over in his hands before he snapped the cord. He was
a little ashamed at his eagerness to know what was
within its worn newspaper wrapping. He felt the dis-
grace of his curiosity, even though he assured himself
there was no reason why he should not investigate the
package now, when all ownership was lost. He knew
that he would never see the woman again, and that she
would always remain a mystery to him, unless what he
held in his hands revealed the secret of her identity.

A half minute more and he was leaning over in the
full light of the lamp, his two hands clutching the thing
which the paper had disclosed when it dropped to the
floor—his eyes staring, his lips parted, and his heart
seeming to stand still in the utter amazement of that
moment !

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CHAPTER V
THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Davin held in his hands a photograph—the picture of

a girl. He had half guessed what he would find when
he began to unfold the wrapping and saw the edge

_ Of grey cardboard. In that same breath had come

his astonishment—a surprise that was almost a shock.
The night had been tilled with Strange c’ anges for
him; forces which he had not yet begun to com-
prehend had drawn him into the beginning of a mys-
terious adventure; they had purged his thoughts of
himself; they had forced upon him other things, other
people, and a glimpse or two of anvther sort of life—he
had seen tragedy and happiness, a bit of something to
laugh at, and he had felt the thrill of sudden changes.
A few hours had made him the bewildered and yet
Passive object of the unexpected And now, as he sat
alone on the edge of his bed, had come the climax of
that unexpected.

The girl in the picture was not dead—not merely a
lifeless shadow put there by the art of a camera. She
was alive! That was his first thought, his first impres-
sion. It was as if he had come upon her suddenly,
and by his presence had startled her, had made her face
him squarely, tensely, a little frightened, and yet defiant
—and ready for flight. In that first moment he would
not have disbelieved his eyes if she had moved, if she

had drawn away from him, and had disappeared out of

The Girl Beyond the Trail

the picture with the swiftness of a bird. For he—some-
one—had startled her; someone had made her afraid,
and yet defiant; someone had roused in her that
bird-like impulse of flight even as the camera had
clicked.

He bent closer into the lamp-glow, and stared. The
girl was standing on a flat slab of rock close to the edge
of a pool. Behind her was a carpet of white sand, and
beyond that a rock-cluttered gorge and the side of a
mountain. She was barefooted. Her feet were white
against the dark rock. Her arms were bare to the
elbows, and shone with that same whiteness. He took
these things in, one by one, as if it was impossible for
the picture to impress itself upon him all at once. She
stood leaning a little forward on the rock-slab, her dress
only a little below her knees, and as she leaned thus,
her eyes flashing and her lips parted, the wind had flung
a wonderful disarray of curls over her shoulders and
breast. He saw the sunlight in them; in the lamp-glow
they seemed to move; ihe throb of her breast seemed to
give them life; one hand seemed about to fling them
back from her face, her lips quivered as if about to speak
to him. Against that savage background of mountain
and gorge she stood out clear-cut as a cameo, slender
as a reed; wild, palpitating, beautiful. She was more
than a picture. She was Life. She was there—with
David in his room—as surely as the woman had been
with him in the train.

He drew a deep breath, and sat back on the edge of
his bed. He heard Father Roland getting into his
creaky bed in the adjoining room. Then came the
missioner’s voice :

“Good night, David.”

The Girl in the Photograph

“Good night, father.”

For a space after that he sat staring blankly at the
log wall of his room. Then he leaned over again and
held the photograph a second time in the lamp-glow.
The first strange spell of the picture was broken, and he
looked at it more coolly, more critically, a little disgusted
with himself for having allowed his imagination to play
a trick upon him. He turned it over in his hands, and
on the back of the cardboard mount he saw there had
been writing. He examined it closely, and made out
faintly the words, “Firepan Creek, Stikine River,
August »” and the date was gone. That was all.
There was no name, no word that might give him a
clue as to the identity of the mysterious woman of the
train or her relationship to the strange picture she had
left in her seat when she disappeared at Graham.

Once more his puzzled eyes tried to find some solu-
tion to the mystery of this night in the picture of the
girl herself, and as he looked, question after question
pounded through his head. What had startled her?
Who had frightened her? What had brought that
hunted look—that half-defiance into her poise and eyes—
just as he had seen the strange questing and suppressed
fear in the eyes and face of the woman in the train?
He made no effort to answer, but accepted the visual
facts as they came to him. She was young—the girl
in the picture ; almost a child, as he regarded childhood.
Perhaps seventeen, or a month or two older; he was
curiously precise in adding that month or two. Some-
thing in the woman of her as she stood on the rock
made it occur to him as a necessity. He saw, now, that
she had been wading in the pool, for she had dropped

- a Stocking on the white sand, and near it lay an object

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

that was a shoe or a moccasin, he could not make out
which. It was while she had been wading alone that
the interruption had come; she had turned, she had
sprung to the flat rock, her hands a little clenched, her
eyes flashing, her breast panting under the smother of
her hair; and it was in this moment, as she had stood
ready to fight—or fly—that the camera had caught her.
As he saw this picture, as it lived before his eyes, a
faint smile played over his lips, a smile in which there
was little humour and much irony. He had been a
fool that day, twice a fool, perhaps three times a fool.
Nothing but folly, a diseased conception of things,
could have made him see tragedy in the face of the
woman in the train, or have induced him to follow her.
Sleeplessness, a mental exhaustion to which his body
had not responded in two days and two nights, had
dulled his senses and his reason. He felt an unpleasant
desire to laugh at himself. Tragedy! A woman in
distress! He shrugged his shoulders, and his teeth
gleamed in a cold smile at the girl in the picture. Surely
there was no tragedy or mystery in her poise on that
rock! She had been bathing, alone, hidden away as
she thought; someone had crept up, had disturbed her,
and the camera had clicked at that psychological mo-
ment of her bird-like poise when she was not yet
decided whether to turn in flight or remain and punish
the intruder with her anger. It was quite clear to him.
Any girl, caught in that same way, might have be-
trayed the same emotions. But—Firepan Creek—Stikine
River. . . . And she was wild. . . . She was a creature of
those mountains and that wild gorge, wherever they
were—and beautiful—slender as a flower—lovelier
than——

The Girl in the Photograph

David set his lips tight. They shut off a quick
breath, a gasp, the sharp surge of a sudden pain. Swift
as his thoughts there had come a transformation in the
picture before his eyes, a drawing of a curtain over it,
like a golden veil; and then she was standing there,
and the gold had gathered about her in the wonderful
mantle of her hair; shining hair—dishevelled hair—a
bare white arm thrust upward through its sheen, and
her face—taunting, unafraid, laughing at him! Good
God, could he never kill that memory? Was it upon
him again to-night, clutching at his throat, stifling his
heart, grinding him into the agony he could not fight—
that vision of her—his wife? That girl on her rock—so
like a slender flower! That woman in her room—so like
a golden goddess! Both caught—unexpectedly ! What
devil-spirit had mace him pick up this picture from
the woman’s seat? What——

His fingers tightened upon the photograph, ready to
tear it into bits. The cardboard ripped—an inch—and
he stopped suddenly his impulse to destroy. The girl
was looking at him again from oui of the picture—look-
ing at him with clear, wide eyes, Surprised at his weak-
ness, startled by the fierceness of his assault upon her,
wondering, amazed, questioning him! For the first
time he saw what he had missed before—that question-
ing in her eyes. It was as if she was on the point of
asking him something—as if her voice had just come
from between her parted lips, or was about to come.
And for him; that was it—for him!

His fingers relaxed. He smoothed down the torn
edge of the cardboard as if it had been a wound in his
own flesh. After all, this inanimate thing was very
much like himself. It was lost—a thing out of place

§!I

The Girl Beyond the Trail

and out of home; a wanderer from now on, depending
largely, like himself, on the charity of fate. Almost
gently he returned it to its newspaper wrapping. Deep
in him there was a sentiment which nothing would be
able to kill; a sentiment which made him cherish
little things which had belonged to the past-—a faded
ribbon, a withered flower that she had worn on the
night they were married; and memories—memories
that he might better have let droop and die. Some-
thing of this spirit was in the touch of his fingers as he
placed the photograph on the table.

He undressed quietly. Before he turned in he placed
a hand to his head. It was hot, feverish. This was
not unusual, and it did not alarm him. Quite often of
late these hot and feverich spells had come upon him, ;
nearly always at night. Usuall: they were followed the
next day by a terrific headache. More and more
frequently they had been warning him how nearly down
and out he was, and he knew whe ‘> expect. He put
out his light and stretched himself between the warm
blankets of his bed, knowing that he was about to begin
again the fight he dreaded—the struggle that always
came at night with the demon that lived within him, the
demon that was feeding on his life as a leech feeds on
blood, the demon that was killing him inch by inch.
Nerves tremendously unstrung! Nerves flayed and
broken until they were bleeding! Worry—emptiness of
heart and soul—a world turned black! And all because
of her—the golden goddess who had laughed at him in
her room, whose laughter would never die out of his
ears. He gritted his teeth; his hands clenched under
his blankets; a surge of anger swept through him—for
an instant it was almost hatred. Was it possible that

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“TN 'lULhhlUlUr CUD

The Girl in the Photograph

she—that woman who had been his wife—could chain
him now, enslave his thoughts, fi:: his mind, his brain,
his body after what had happened? Why was it that
he could not:rise up and laugu, and shrug his shoulders,
and thank his God that, after all, there had been no
children? Why couldn’t he do that? Why? Why?

A long time afterward he seemed to be asking that
question. He seemed to be crying it out aloud, over
and over again, in a strange and mysterious wilderness ;
and at last he seemed to be very near to a girl who was
standing waiting for him on a rock—a girl who bent
toward him like a wonderful flower, her arms reaching
out, her lips parted, her eyes shining through the glory
of her wind-swept hair as she listened to his cry of
Why? Why?

He slept. It was a deep, cool sleep; a slumber
beside a shadowed pool, with the wind whispering
gently in sirange tree-tops, and water rippling softly in
a strange stream.

CHAPTER VI
DAVID’S VICTORY

SUNSHINE followed storm. The winter sun was cresting
the tree-tops in a cheering radiance when Thoreau got
out of his bed to build a fire in the big stove. It was
nine o'clock, and bitter cold. The frost lay thick upon
the windows, with the sun staining it like the silver and
gold of old cathedral glass, and as the fox breeder
opened the cabin door to look at his thermometer he
heard the snap and the crack of that cold in the trees
outside and in the timber of the log walls. He always
looked at the thermometer before he built his fire—a
fixed habit in him; he wanted to know, first of all, if it
had been a good night for his foxes and if it had been
too cold for the furred creatures of the forests to travel.
Fifty degrees below zero was bad for fisher and »>rten
and lynx; on such nights they preferred the wa:-uth of
snug holes and deep windfalls to full stomachs, and his
traps were usually empty. This morning it was forty-
seven degrees below zero. Cold enough! He turned,
closed the door, shivered. Then he stopped half-way to
the stove and stared.

Last night, or rather in that black part of the early
day when they ‘ad gone to bed, Father Roland had
warned him to make no noise in the morning; that they
would let David sleep until noon; that he was sick,
worn out, and needed rest. And there he stood now in
the doorway of his room, even before the fire was

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David’s Victory

Started—five years younger than he looked last night,
nodding cheerfully.

Thoreau grinned.

“Boo-jou, m’sieu,” he said in his Cree-French. “My
order was to make no noise and let you sleep,” and he
nodded toward the missioner’s room.

“The sun woke me,” said David. “Come here. I
want you to see it!”

Thoreau went and stood beside him, and David
pointed to the one window of his room, which faced the
rising sun. This window, too, was covered with frost,
and this frost as they looked at it was like a golden fire.

“I think that was what woke me,” he said, “at least,
my eyes were on it when I opened them. It is
wonderful ! ”

“It is very cold, and the frost is thick,” said Thoreau.
“It will go quickly after I have built the fire, m’sieu.
And then you will see the sun—the real sun.”

David watched him as he built the fire. The first
crackling of it sent a comfort through him. He had
slept well, so soundly that not once had he roused him-
self during his six hours in bed. It was the first time
he had slept like that for months. His blood tingled
with a new warmth. He had no headache. There was
not that dull pain behind his eyes. He breathed easier,
the air passed like a tonic into his lungs. It was as if
those wonderful hours of sleep had wrested some deadly
obstruction out of his veins. The fire crackled. It
roared up the big chimney. The jack-pine knots, heavy
with pitch, gave to the top of the stove a rosy glow.
Thoreau stuffed more fuel into the blazing firepot, and
the glow spread cheerfully, and with the warmth that
was filling the cabin there mingled the sweet scent of

The Girl Beyond the Trail

pine-pitch and burning balsam. David rubbed his
hands. He was rubbing them when Marie came into
the room, plaiting the second of her two thick ropes of
shining black hair. He nodded. Marie smiled, show-

ing her white tect, her dark eyes clear as a fawn’s. He
felt in him a strange rejoicing—for Thoreau. Thoreau
was a lucky man. [1+ could see proof of it in the Cree

woman’s face. Boih were luctv. They were happy—
a man and woman together, a5 iings should be.
Thoreau had broken te ice in a pail, and now he
filled the wash-basin for him. Ice water for his morn-
ing ablution was a new thing to David. But he plunged
his face into it recklessly. Little particles of ice pricked
his skin, and the chill of the water seemed to sink into
his vitals. It was a sudden change from water as hot
as he could stand to this. His teeth clicked as he
wiped himself on the burlaps towelling. Marie used the
basin next, and then Thoreau. When Marie had dried
her face he noticed the old-rose flush in her cheeks, the
fire of rich red blood glowing under her dark skin.
Thoreau himself blubbered and spouted in his ice-water
bath like a joyous porpoise, and he rubbed himself on
the burlaps until the two apple-red spots above his
heard shone like the glow that had spread over the top
of the stove. David found himself noticing these
things, very small things, as they were; he discovered
himself taking a sudden and curious interest in events
and things of no importance at all, even in the quick,
deft slashes of the Frenchman’s long knife as he cut up
the huge white fish that was to be their breakfast. He
watched Marie as she wallowed the thick slices in yellow
corn-meal, and listened to the first hissing sputter of
them as they were dropped into the hot grease of the
56

ways element

David’s Victory

skillet. And the odour of fish taken only yesterday
from the net which Thoreau kept in the frozen
lake made him hungry. This was unusual. It was
as unexpected as other things that had happened. It
puzzled him.

He returned to his room, with a suspicion in his
mind that he should put on a collar and tie and his coat.
He changed his mind when he saw the photograph in
its newspaper wrapping on the table. In another mo-
ment it was in his hands. Now, with day in the room,
and the sun shining, he expected to see a change. But
there was no change in her; she was there, as he had
left her last night; the question was in her eyes, un-
spoken words still on her lips. Then, suddenly, it
swept upon him where he had been in those first hours
of peaceful slumber that had come to him—beside a
quiet, dark pool—gently whispering forests about him—
an angel standing close to him, on a rock, shrouded in
her hair, watching over him! A thrill passed throuch
him. Was it possible? He did not finish the question.
He could not bring himself to ask if this picture—some

_ Strange spirit it might possess—had reached out to him,

quieted him, made him sleep, brought him dreams that
were like a healing medicine. And yet

He remembered that in one of his leather } igs there
was a magnifying glass, and he assured himself that he
was merely curious—most casually curio. .—as he
hunted it out from among his belongings ard scanned
the almost illegible writing on the bac’: of the cardboard

- mount. He made out the date quite easily now, im-

pressed in the cardboard by the point of a pencil. It
was only a little more than a year old. ‘t was un-

_ accountable why this discovery should fe ¢ iim as it

The Girl Beyond the Trail

did. He made no effort to measure or sound the satis-
faction it gave him—this knowledge that the girl had
stood so recently on that rock beside the pool. He was
beginning to personalise her unconsciously, beginning
to think of her mentally as “the Girl.” She was a bit
friendly. With her looking at him like that he did not
feel quite so alone with himself, and there could not be
much of a change in her since that yesterday of a year
ago, when someone had startled her there.

It was Father Roland’s voice that made him wrap
up the picture again, this time not in its old newspaper
covering, but in a silk handkerchief which he had
pawed out of his bag, and which he dropped back again
and locked in. Thoreau was telling the missioner about
David’s early rising when the latter reappeared. They
shook hands, and the missioner, looking David keenly
in the eyes, saw the change in him.

“No need to tell me you had a good night!” he
exclaimed.

“Splendid,” affirmed David.

The window was blazing with the golden sun now;
it shot through where the frost was giving way, and a
ray of it fell like a fiery shaft on Marie’s glossy head as
she bent over the table. Father Roland pointed to the
window, with one hand on David’s arm.

“Wait until you get out into that,” he said. “This
is just the beginning, David—just the beginning !”

They sat down to breakfast, fish and coffee, bread
and potatoes—and beans. It was almost finished when
David split open his third piece of fish, white as snow
under its crisp brown, and asked quite casually :

“Did you ever hear of the Stikine River, father?”

Father Roland sat up, stopped his eating, and looked

David’s Victory

at David for a moment as though the question struck
an unusual personal interest in him.

“I know a man who lived for a great many years
along the Stikine,” he replied then. “He knows every
mile of it from where it empties into the sea at Point
Rothshay to the Lost Country between Mount Finlay
and the Sheep Mountains. It’s in the northern part of
British Columbia, with its upper waters reaching up
into the Yukon. A wild country. A country less
known than it was sixty years ago, when there was a
gold rush up over the old Telegraph Trail. Tavish
has told me a lot about it. A queer man, this Tavish.
We hit his cabin on our way to God’s Lake.”

“Did he ever tell you,” said David, with an odd
quiver in his throat, “did he ever tell you of a stream, a
tributary stream, called Firepan Creek ? ””

“Firepan Creek—Firepan Creek?” mumbled the
little missioner. “He has told mea great many things

_ --this Tavish, but I can’t remember that. Firepan

Creek! Yes, he did! [| remember, now. He had a
cabin on it one year, the year he had smallpox. He
almost died there. I want you to meet Tavish, David.
We will stay over-night at his cabin. He is a Strange
character—a great object lesson.” Suddenly he came
back to David’s question, “What do you want to
_ know about the Stikine River and Firepan Creek?”

“T was reading Something about them that interested

'
$
+ me,” replied David. “A very wild country, I take it,
:

from what Tavish has told you. Probably no white
_ People.”

“ Always, everywhere, there are white people,” said

2 Father Roland. “Tavish is white, and he was there.

E 59

The Girl Beyond the Trail

Sixty years ago, in the gold rush, there must have been
many. But I fancy there are very few now. Tavish
can tell us. He came from there only a year ago this
last September.”

David asked no more questions. He turned his
attention entirely to his fish. In that same moment
there came an outburst from the foxes that made Thoreau
grin. Their yapping rose until it was a clamorous
demand. Then the dogs joined in. To David it
seemed as though there must be a thousand foxes out in
the Frenchman’s pens, and at least a hundred dogs just
beyond the cabin walls. The sound was blood-curdling
in a way. He had heard nothing like it before in all
his life; it almost made one shiver to think of going
outside. The chorus kept up for fully a minute. Then
it began to die out, and David could hear the chill clink
of chains. Through it all Thoreau was grinning.

“It’s two hours over feeding time for the foxes, and
they know it, m’sieu,” he explained to David. “Their
outcry excites the huskies, and when the two go it to-
gether—mon Dieu! it is enough to raise the dead.”
He pushed himself back from the table and rose to his
feet. “I am going to feed them now. Would you like
to see it, m’sieu ?”

Father Roland answered for him.

“Give us ten minutes, and we will be ready,” he
said, seizing David by the arm and speaking to
Thoreau. ‘‘Come with me, David. I have something
waiting for you.”

They went into the little missioner’s room, and,
pointing to his tumbled bed, Father Roland said:

“Now, David, strip! ”

David had noticed with some concern the garments

David’s Victory

vie worn that morning by Father Roland and the French-
rish man—their thick woollen shirts, their Strange-looking
this

heavy trousers that were met just below the knees by
; the tops of bulky German socks, turned over as he had
his worn his more fashionable hosiery in the college days

1ent when golf suits, bulldog pipes and white terriers were
eau the rage. He had stared furtively at Thoreau’s great
ous

feet in their moose-hide moccasins, thinking of his own
dit _ Vici-kids, the heaviest footwear he had brought with

it in him. The problem of outfitting was solved for him
just now, as he looked at the bed, and as Father Roland
ling withdrew, rubbing his hands until they cracked, David
1 all began undressing. In less than a quarter of an hour
ing he was ready for the big outdoors. When the mis-
‘hen sioner returned to give him a first lesson in properly
link “stringing up” his moccasins, he brought with him a
fur cap very similar to that worn by Thoreau. He was
and amazed to find how perfectly it fitted.
‘heir “You see,” said Father Roland, pleased at David's
t to- wonder, “I always take back a bale of this stuff with
ad.” me, of different sizes ; it comes in handy, you know.
» his And the cap——”
like He chuckled as David Surveyed as much as he could
see of himself in a small mirror.
“The cap is Marie's work,” he finished. “She got
” he the size from your own hat, and made it while we were
x to asleep. A fine fisher-cat that—Thoreau’s best. And
hing a good fit, eh?”
“ Marie—did this—for me?” demanded David.
and, The missioner nodded.

“And the pay, father——_”

“Among friends of the forests,
rents =f pay.”

3 61

David, never Speak

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“But this skin! It is beautiful—valuable——”

“ And it is yours,” said Father Roland. “Iam glad
you mentioned payment to me, and not to Thoreau or
Marie. They might not have understood, and it would
have hurt them. If there had been anything to pay,
they would have mentioned it in the giving; I would
have mentioned it. That is a fine point of etiquette,
isn't it?”

Slowly there came a look into David’s face which the
other did not at first understand. After a moment he
said, without looking at the missioner, and in a voice
that had a curiously hard note in it:

“But for this Marie will let me give her something
in return—a little something I have no use for now?
A little gift—my thanks—my friendship——”

He did not wait for the missioner’s reply, but went
to one of his two leather bags. With a key he unlocked
the bag in which he had placed the photograph of the
girl. Out of it he took a small plush box. It was so
small that it lay in the palm of his hand as he held it
out to Father Roland.

Deeper lines had gathered about his mouth.

“Give this to Marie for me.”

Father Roland took the box. He did not look at it.
Steadily he gazed into David’s eyes.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A locket,” replied David. ‘‘It belonged to her. In
it is a picture—her picture—the only one I have. Will
you, please, destroy the picture before you give the
locket to Marie?”

Father Roland saw the quick, sudden throb in
David’s throat. He gripped the little box in his hand
until it seemed as though he would crush it, and his

David’s Victory

heart was beating with the triumph of a drum. He

spoke but one word, his eyes meeting David's eyes, but

that one word was a whisper from Straight out of his
soul, and the word was—

“ Victory! *2

CHAPTER VII

DAVID MEETS BAREE

FATHER ROLAND slipped the little plush box into his
pocket as he and David went out to join Thoreau. They
left the cabin together, Marie lifting her eyes from her
work in a furtive glance to see if the stranger was
wearing her cap.

A wild outcry from the dogs greeted the three men
as they appeared outside the door, and for the first time
David saw with his eyes what he had only heard last
night. Among the balsams and spruce close to the
cabin there were fully a score of the wildest and most
savage-looking dogs he had ever beheld. As he stood
for a moment, gazing about him, three things impressed
themselves upon him in a flash: it was a glorious day,
it was so cold that he felt a curious sting in the air, and
not one of those long-haired, white-fanged beasts strain-
ing at their leashes possessed a kennel or even a brush
shelter. It was this fact that struck him most forcefully.
Inherently he was a lover of animals, and he believed
these four-footed creatures of Thoreau’s must have
suffered terribly during the night. He noticed that at
the foot of each tree to which a dog was attached there
was a round, smooth depression in the snow where the
animal had slept. The next few minutes added to his
conviction that the Frenchman and the missioner were
heartless masters, though open-handed hosts. Mukoki
and another Indian had come up with two gunny-sacks,

David Meets Baree

and from one of these a bushel of fish were emptied
out upon the snow. They were frozen stiff, so that
Mukoki had to separate them with his belt-axe; David
fancied they must be hard as rock. Thoreau proceeded
to toss these fish to the dogs, one at a time, and one to
each dog. The watchful and apparently famished
beasts caught the fish in mid-air, and there followed a
snarling and a grinding of teeth and smashing of bones
and frozen flesh that made David shiver. He was half
disgusted. Thoreau might at least have boiled the fish,
or thawed them out. A fish weighing from one and a
half to two pounds was each dog’s allotment, and the
work—if this feeding process could be called work—was
done. Father Roland watched the dogs, rubbing his
hands with satisfaction. Thoreau was showing his big
white teeth, as if proud of something.

“Not a bad tooth among them, mon pére,” he said.
“Not one!”

“Fine, fine, but a little too fat, Thoreau. You’re
feeding them too well for dogs out of the traces,” replied
Father Roland.

David gasped.

“Too well!” he exclaimed. “They’re half starved,
and almost frozen! Look how the poor devils swallow
those fish, ice and all! Why don’t you cook the fish ?
Why don’t you give them some sort of shelter to
sleep in?”

Father Roland and the Frenchman stared at him as
if they did not quite catch his meaning. Then a look
of comprehension swept over the missioner’s face. He
chuckled, the chuckle grew, it shook his body, and he
laughed—laughed until the forest flung back the echoes
of his merriment, and even the leathery faces of the

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

Indians crinkled in sympathy. David could see no
reason for his levity. He looked at Thoreau. His host
was grinning broadly.

“God bless my soul!” said the little missioner at
last. “Starved? Cold? Boil their fish? Give ’em
beds?” He stopped himself as he saw a flush rising in
David's face. “Forgive me, David,” he begged, laying
a hand on the other’s arm. “You can’t understand how
funny that was—what you said. If you gave those
fellows the warmest kennels in New York City, lined
with bearskins, they wouldn’t sleep in them, but would
come outside and burrow those little round holes in the
snow. That’s their nature. I’ve felt sorry for them,
like you, when the thermometer was down to sixty. But
it’s no use. They don’t appreciate it. And they don’t
like boiled fish. They want ’em fresh or frozen. [
Suppose you might educate them to eat cooked meat,
but it would be like making over a lynx or a fox or a
wolf. They’re mighty comfortable, those dogs, David.
That bunch of eight over there is mine. They’ll take
us north. And I want to warn you—don't put yourself
in reach of them until they get acquainted with you.
They’re not pets, you know. I guess they’d appreciate
petting just about as much as boiled fish or poison.
There’s nothing on earth like a husky or an Eskimo
dog when it comes to lookin’ you in the eye with a
friendly and lovable look and snapping your hand off at
the same time. But you'll like °em, David. Youcar’t
help from feeling they’re pretty good comrades wi.::,
you see what they do in the traces.”

Thoreau had shouldered the second gunny-sack, and
now led the way into the thicker spruce and balsam
behind the cabin. David and Father Roland foliowed,

David Meets Baree

the latter explaining more fully why it was necessary to
keep the sledge-dogs “hard as rocks,” and how the
trick was done. He was still talking, with the fingers
of one hand closed about the little plush box in his
pocket, when they came to the first of the fox-pens. He
was watching David closely, a little anxiously—thrilled
by the touch of that box. He read men as he read
books, seeing much that was not in print, and feeling,
by a wonderful intuitive power, emotions not visible in
a face, and he believed that in David there were strange
and conflicting forces struggling now for mastery. It
was not in the surrender of the box that he had felt
David's triumph, but in the voluntary sacrifice of what
that box contained. He wanted to rid himself of the
picture, and quickly. He was filled with apprehension
lest David should weaken again and ask for its return.
The locket meant nothing. It was a bauble, cold,
emotionless, easily forgotten; but the other, the picture
of the woman who had almost destroyed him, was a
deadly menace, a poison to David’s soul and body so
long as it remained in his possession, and the little
missioner’s fingers itched to tear it from the velvet
casket and destroy it. He watched his opportunity. As
Thoreau tossed three fish over the high wire netting of
the first pen the Frenchman was explaining to David
why there were two female foxes and one male in each
of his nine pens, and why warm houses, partly covered
with earth, were necessary for their comfort and health,
while the sledge-dogs required nothing more than a
bed of snow. Father Roland seized this opportunity
to drop back toward the cabin, calling in Cree to

Mukoki. Five seconds after the cabin concealed him
from David he had the plush box out of his pocket,
67

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

another five and he had opened it, and the locket itself
was in his hand. And then, his breath coming in a
sudden hissing spurt between his teeth, he was looking
upon the face of the Woman. Again in Cree he spoke
to Mukoki, asking him for his knife. The Indian drew
it from his sheath and watched in silence while Father
Roland accomplished his work of destruction. The
missioner’s teeth were set tight. There was a strange
gleam of fire in his eyes. An unspoken malediction rose
out of his soul. The work was done! He wanted to
hurl the yellow trinket, shaped so sacrilegiously in the
image of a heart, as far as he could fling it into the
forest. It seemed to burn his fingers, and he held for it
a personal hatred. But it was for Marie! Marie would
prize it, and Marie would purify it. Against her breast,
where beat a heart of his beloved Northland, it would
cease to be a polluted thing. This was his thought as he
replaced it in the casket and retraced his steps to the
fox-pens.

Thoreau was tossing fish into the last pen when
Father Roland came up. David was not with him. In
answer to the. missioner’s inquiry he nodded toward the
thicker growth of the forest, where as yet his axe had
not scarred a tree.

“He said that he would walk a little distance into
the timber.”

Father Roland muttered something that Thoreau did
not catch, and then, a sudden illumination lighting up
his eyes:

“I am going to leave you to-day.”

“To-day, mon pére!” Thoreau made a muffled ex-
clamation of astonishment. “To-day? And it is fairly
well along toward noon!”

Pe ee

David Meets Baree

“He cannot travel far.” The missioner nodded in
the direction of the unthinned timber. “It will give us
four hours between noon and dark. He is soft. You
understand? We will make as far as the old trapping
shack you abandoned two winters ago over on Moose
Creek. It is only eight miles, but it will be a bit of
hardening for him. And, besides——”

He was silent for a moment, as if turning a matter
over again in his own mind.

“I want to get him away.”

He turned a searching, quietly analytic gaze upon
Thoreau to see if the Frenchman would understand
without further ex, Janation.

The fox-breeder picked up the empty gunny-sack.

“We will begin to pack the sledge, mon pére. There
must be a good hundred-pound to the dog.”

As they turned back to the cabin Father Roland
cast a look over his shoulder to see if David was
returning.

Three or four hundred yards in the forest David
stood in a mute and increasing wonder. He was in a
tiny open, and about him the spruce and balsam hung
still as death under their heavy cloaks of freshly fallen
snow. It was as if he had entered unexpectedly into a
wonderland of amazing beauty, and that from its dark
and hidden bowers. crusted with their glittering mantles
of white, snow-naiads must be peeping forth at him,
holding their breath for fear of betraying themselves to
his eyes. There was not the chirp of a bird or the
flutter of a wing—not the breath of a sound to disturb
the wonderful silence. He was encompassed in a white,
soft world that seemed tremendously unreal; that for
some strange reason made him breathe very softly, that

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te alias ieee eee

The Girl Beyond the Trail

made him stand without a movement, and made him
listen as though he had come to the edge of the uni-
verse and there were mysterious things to hear, and
possibly to see, if he remained very quiet. It was the
first sensation of its kind he had ever experienced ; it as
disquieting, and yet soothing; it filled him with an
indefinable uneasiness, and yet with a strange yearning.
He stood, in these moments, at the inscrutable threshold
of the Great North; he felt the enigmatical, voiceless
spirit of it; it passed into his blood; it made his heart
beat a little faster; it made him afraid, and yet daring.
Adventure rolled over slowly, woke at last, and yawned
in his breast. He felt that Pierian call of the North-
land, and it alarmed him even as it thrilled him. He
knew, now, that this was the beginning—the door open-
ing to him—of a world that reached for hundreds of
miles up there. Yes, there were thousands of miles of
it, many thousands; white, as he saw it here; beautiful,
terrible, and deathly still. And into this world Father
Roland had asked him to go, and he had as good as
pledged himself.

Before he could think, or stop himself, he had
laughed. For an instant it struck him like mirth in a
tomb, an unpleasant, soulless sort of mirth, for his
laugh had in it a jarring incredulity, a mocking lack of
faith in himself. What right had he to enter into a
world like that? Why, even now, his legs ached be-
cause of his exertion in furrowing through a few hundred
steps of foot-and-a-half snow !

But the laugh succeeded in bringing him back into
the reality of things. He started at right angles, pushed
into the maze of white-robed spruce and balsam, and
turned back in the direction of the cabin over a new

eS FS ae eS FF

bot adapt iia tite

David Meets Baree

trail. He was not in a good humour. There possessed
him an in-growing and acute feeling of animosity
toward himself. Since the day—or night—Fate had
drawn that great black curtain over his life, shutting
out his sun, he had been drifting; he had been floating
along on currents of the least resistance, making no
fight, and in the completeness of his grief and despair
allowing himself to disintegrate physically as well as
mentally. He had sorrowed with himself, he had told
himself that everything worth having was gone—but
now, for the first time, he cursed himself. To-day—
these few hundred yards out in the snow—had come as
a test. They had proved his weakness He had
degenerated into less thana man! He was-—

He clenched his hands inside his thick mittens, and
a rage burned in him like a fire. Go with Father
Roland? Go up into that world where he knew that
the one great law of life was the survival of the fittest ?
Yes—he would go! This body and brain of his needed
their punishment, and they should have it! He would
go. And his body would fight for it, or die. The
thought gave him an atrocious satisfaction. He was
filled with a sudden contempt for himself. If Father
Roland had known he would have muttered a pzan
of joy.

Out of the darkness of the humour into which he
had fallen David was suddenly flung by a low and
ferocious growl. He had stepped around a young
balsam that stood like a seven-foot ghost in his path,
and found himself face to face with a beast that was
cringing at the foot of a thick spruce. It was a dog.
The animal was not more than four or five short paces
from him, and was chained to the tree. David surveyed

The Girl Beyond the Trail

him with sudden interest, wondering first of all why he
was fastened in this isolated spot a hundred yards from
the cabin. He was larger than the other dogs, and as
he lay crouched there against his tree, his ivory fangs
gleaming between half-uplifted lips, he looked like a
great wolf. In those other dogs David had witnessed
an avaricious excitement at the approach of men, a
hungry demand for food, a straining at leash-ends, a
whining and snarling comradeship. Here he saw none
of those things. The big wolf-like beast at the tree-
foot made no sound after that first growl, and made no
movement. And yet every muscle in his body seemed
gathered in a tense readiness to spring, and his gleam-
ing fangs threatened. He was ferocious, and yet
shrinking; ready to leap, and yet afraid. He was like
a thing at bay—a hunted creature that had been
prisoned. And then David noticed that he had but one
good eye. It was bloodshot, balefully alert, and fixed
on him like a round ball of fire. The lids had closed
over his other eye; they were swollen; there was a big
lump just over where the eye should have been. Then
he saw that the beast’s lips were cut and bleeding.
There was blood on the snow; and suddenly the big
brute covered his fangs to give a racking cough, as
though he had swallowed a sharp fishbone, and fresh
blood drooled out of his mouth on the snow between
his forepaws. One of these forepaws was twisted; it
had been broken.

“You poor devil!” said David aloud.

He sat down on a birch log within six feet of the
end of the chain, and looked steadily into the big
husky’s one bloodshot eye as he said again:

“You poor devil!”

i Me NLS nS re ie nis sogukldutmulaotls seek

David Meets Baree

Baree, the dog, did not understand. It puzzled him
that this man did not carry a club. He was used to
clubs. So far back as he could remember the club had
been the one dominant thing in his life. It was a club
that had closed his eye. It was a club that had broken
one of his teeth and cut his lips, and it was a club that
had beat against his ribs until, now, the blood came up
into his throat and choked him, and drooled out of his
mouth. But this man had no club, and he looked
friendly.

“You poor devil!” said David for the third time.

Then he added, dark indignation in his voice :

“What in God’s name has Thoreau been doing to
you?”

There was something sickening in the spectacle—
that battered, bleeding, broken creature huddling there
against the tree, coughing up the red stuff that dis-
coloured the snow. Loving dogs, he was not .‘:aid of
them, and forgetting Father Roland’s warning he rose
from the log and wert nearer. From where he stood,
looking down, Baree could have reached his throat.
But he made no movement, unless it was that his thickly-
haired body was trembling a little. His one 1ed eye
looked steadily up at David.

For the fourth time David spoke.

“You poor, God-forsaken brute! ”

There was friendliness, compassion, wonderment in
his voice, and he held down a hand that he had drawn
from one of the thick mittens. Another moment and
he would have bent over, but a cry stopped him so
sharply and suddenly that he jumped back.

Thoreau stood within ten feet of him, horrified. He
clutched a rifle in one hand.

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“ Back—back, m’sieu! ” he cried sharply. “For the
love of God, jump back ! ”

He swung his rifle into the crook of his arm. David
did not move, and from Thoreau he looked down coolly
at the dog. Baree was a changed beast. His one eye
was fastened upon the fox-breeder. His bared, bleeding
lips revealed inch-long fangs between which there came
now a low and menacing snarl. The tawny crest along
his spine was like a brush ; from a puzzled toleration of
David his posture and look had changed into deadly
hatred for Thoreau and fear of him. For a moment
after his first warning the Frenchman’s voice Seemed to
stick in his throat as he saw what he believed to be
David’s fatal disregard of his peril. He did not speak
to him again. His eyes were on the dog. Slowly he
raised his rifle; David heard the click of the hammer,
and Baree heard it. There was something in the sharp,
metallic thrill of it that stirred his brute instinct. His
lips fell over his fangs, he whined, and then, on his
belly, he dragged himself slowly toward David !

It was a miracle that Thoreau the F renchman looked
upon then. He would have staked his very soul,
wagered his hopes of Paradise against a babiche thread,
that what he saw could never have happened between
Baree and man. In utter amazement he lowered his
gun. David, looking down, was smiling into that one
wide-open, bloodshot eye of Baree’s, his hand reaching
out. Foot by foot Baree slunk to him on his belly, and
when at last he was at David's feet he faced Thoreau
again, his terrible teeth Snarling, a low, rumbling growl
in his throat. David reached down and touched him,
even as he heard the fox-breeder make an incoherent
sound in his beard. At the caress of his hand a great

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David Meets Baree

shudder passed through Baree’s body, as if he had been
stung. That touch was the connecting link through
which passed the electrifying thrill of a man’s soul
reaching out to a brute instinct.

Baree had found a man-friend !

When David stepped away from him to Thoreau’s
side all of the Frenchman’s face that was not hidden
under his beard was of a curious ashen pallor. He
seemed to make a struggle before he could get his voice.

And then: “M’sieu, I tell you it is incredible! 1
cannot believe what I have seen. It was a miracle!”

He shuddered. David was looking at him a bit
puzzlea. He could not quite comprehend the fear that
had possessed him. Thoreau saw this, and pointing to
Baree—a gesture that brought a snarl from the beast—
he said :

“He is bad, m’sieu, bad! He is the worst dog in all
this country. He was born an outcast, among the
wolves, and his heart is filled with murder. He is a
quarter wolf, and you can’t club it out of him. Half a
dozen masters have owned him, and none of them has
been able to club it out of him. I, myself, have beaten
him until he lay as if dead, but it did no good. He
has killed two of my dogs. He has leaped at my own
throat. I am afraid of him. I chained him to that tree
a month ago to keep him away from the other dogs,
and since then I have not been able to unleash him.
He would tear me into pieces. Yesterday I beat him
until he was almost dead, and still he was ready to go
at my throat. So I am determined to kill him. He is
no good. Step a little aside, m’sieu, while I put a
bullet through his head!”

He raised his rifle again. David put a hand on it.

¥ 75

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

“TI can unleash him,” he said.

Before the other could speak he had walked boldly
to the tree. Baree did not turn his head, did not for
an instant take his eye from Thoreau. There came the
click of the snap that fastened the chain around the body
of the spruce, and David stood with the loose end of
the chain in his hand.

“There! ”

He laughed a little proudly.

“And I didn’t use a club,” he added.

Thoreau gasped “Mon Diew!” and sat down on the
birch log as though the strength had gone from his
legs.

David rattled the chain and then refastened it about
the spruce. Baree was still watching Thoreau, who
Sat staring at him as if the beast had suddenly changed
his shape and species.

In Davi+’s breast there was the thrill of a new
triumph. ‘Je had done something that Thoreau had
not dared to do, and he had done it unconsciously,
without fear, and without feeling that there had been
any great danger. In those few minutes something of
his old self had returned into him ; he felt a new excite-
ment pumping the blood through his heart, and he
felt the warm glow of it in his body. Baree had awak-
ened something within him—Baree and the club. He
went to Thoreau, who had risen from the log. He
laughed again, a bit exultantly.

“I am going north with Father Roland,” he said.
“Will you let me have the dog, Thoreau? It will save
you the trouble of killing him.”

Thoreau stared at him blankly for a moment before
he answered.

David Meets Baree

“That dog? You? Into the North?” He shot
a look full of hatred and disgust at Baree. ‘“ Would
you risk it, m’sieu?”

“Yes. It is an adventure I should very much like
to try. You may think it strange, Thoreau, but that
dog, ugly and fierce as he is, has found a place with me.
I like him. And I fancy he has begun to like me.”

“But look at his eye, m’sieu——”

“Which eye?” demanded David. ‘The one you
have shut with a club?”

‘He deserved it,” muttered Thoreau. ‘He snapped
at my hand. But I mean the other eye, m’sieu—the
one that is glaring at us now like a red bloodstone with
the heart of a devil in it! I tell you he is a quarter
wolf——”

“And the broke. paw. I suppose that was done by
a club too?” interrupted David.

“It was broken like that when I traded for him a
year ago, m’sieu. I have not maimed him. And—yes,
you may have the beast! May the Saints preserve
youl”

“And his name?”

“The Indian who owned him as a puppy five years
ago called him Baree, which among the Dog Ribs means
‘Wild Blood.’ He should have been called ‘ The
Devil.’”

Thoreau shrugged his shoulders, as though the
matter and its consequences were now off his hands,
and turned in the direction of the cabin. As he followed
the Frenchman, David looked back at Baree. The big
husky had risen from the snow. He was standing at
the full length of his chain, and as David disappeared
among the spruce a low whine that was filled with a

The Girl Beyond the Trail

Strange yearning followed him. He did not hear the
whine, but there came to him distinctly a moment later
the dog’s racking cough, and he shivered, and his eyes
burned into Thoreau’s broad back as he thought of the
fresh blood-clots that were staining the white snow.

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CHAPTER VIII

THE START FOR THE NORTH

Mucu to Thoreau’s amazement, Father Roland made
no objection to David’s ownership of Baree, and when
the Frenchman described with many gesticulations of
wonder what had happened between that devil-dog and
the man, he was still more puzzled by the look of satis-
faction in the little missioner’s face. In David there
had come the sudden awakening of something which
had for a long time been dormant in him, and Father
Roland saw this change, and felt it, even before David
said, when Thoreau had turned away with a darkly
suggestive shrug of his shoulders:

“That poor devil of a beast is down and out, mon
pére. I have never been so bad as that. Never. Kill
him? Bahl If this magical north country of yours
will make a man out of a human derelict it will surely
work some sort of a transformation in a dog that has
been clubbed into imbecility. Will it not?”

It was not the David of yesterday or the day before
that was speaking. There was a passion in his voice, a
deep contempt, a half taunt, a tremble of anger. There
was a flush in his cheeks, too, and a spark of fire in his
eyes. In his heart Father Roland whispered to himself
that this change in David was like a conflagration, and
he rejoiced without speaking, fearing that words might
quench the effect of it.

David was looking at him as if he expected an
answer,

The Girl Beyond the Trail

““What an accursed fool a man is to waste his soul
and voice in lamentation—especially his voice,” he went
on harshly, his teeth gleaming for an instant in a cold
smile. “One ought to act and not whine. That beast
back there is ready to act. He would tear Thoreau’s
jugular out if he had half a chance. And I—why, I
sneaked off like a whipped cur. That’s why Baree is
better than I am, even though he is nothing more than
a four-footed brute. In that room I should have had
the moral courage that Baree has—I should have killed,
killed them both!” He shrugged his shoulders. “I
am quite convinced that it would have been justice, mon
pére. What do you think?”

The missioner smiled enigmatically.

“The soul of many a man has gone from behind
steel bars to Heaven or I vastly miss my guess,” he
said. “But, we don’t like the thought of steel bars, do
we, David? Man-made laws and justice don’t always
run tandem. But God evens things up in the final
balance. You'll live to see that. He’s back there now,
meting out your vengeance to them. Your vengeance.
Do you understand? And you won't be called to take
a hand in the business.” Suddenly he pointed toward
the cabin, where Thoreau and Mukoki were already at
work packing a sledge. “It’s a glorious day. We
Start right after dinner. Let us get your things in a
bundle.”

David made no answer, but three minutes later he
was on his knees unlocking his trunk, with Father
Roland standing close beside him. Something of the
humour of the situation possessed him as he flung out,
one by one, the various articles of his worthless apparel,
and when he had all but finished he looked up into the

The Start for the North

missioner’s face. Father Roland was staring into the
trunk, an expression of great surprise in his counten-
ance, which slowly changed to one of eager joy. He
made a sudden dive, and stood back with a pair of
boxing-gloves in his hands. From the gloves he looked
at David, and then back at the gloves, fondling them
as if they had been alive, his hands almost trembling
at the smooth touch of them, his eyes glowing like the
eyes of a child that had come into possession of a won-
derful toy. David reached into the trunk and produced
a second pair. The missioner seized upon them.

“Dear Heaven, what a gift from the gods!” he
chortled. “David, you will teach me to use them?”
There was almost anxiety in his manner as he added:
“You know how to use them well, David?”

“My chief pastime at home was boxing,” assured
David. There was a touch of pride in his voice. “It
is a scientific recreation. I loved it—that, and swim-
ming. Yes, I will teach you.”

Father Roland went out of the room a moment later,
chuckling mysteriously, with the four gloves hugged
against the pit of his stomach.

David followed a little later, all of his belongings in
one of the leather bags. For some time he had hesi-
tated over the portrait of the Girl; twice he had shut
the lock on it, the third time he placed it in the big
breast pocket inside the coat Father Roland had pro-
vided for him, making a mental apology for that act by
assuring himself that sooner or later he would show the
picture to the missioner, and would want it near at
hand. Father Roland had disposed of the gloves, and
introduced David to the rest of his equipment when he
came from the cabin. It was very business-like, this

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

accoutrement that was‘ to be the final physical touch to
his transition; it did not allow of scepticism; it was
very positive, and about it there was also a quiet and
cold touch of romance. The rifle chilled David’s bare
fingers when he touched it. It was short-barrelled, but
heavy in the breech, with an appearance of tremendous
efficiency about it. It looked like an honest weapon to
David, who was unaccustomed to firearms—and this was
more than he could say for the heavy thirty-eight calibre
automatic pistol which Fathe: Roland thrust in his
hand, and which looked and felt murderously mys-
terious. He frankly confessed his ignorance of these
things, and the missioner chuckled good-humouredly
as he buckled the belt and holster about his waist and
told him on which hip to keep the pistol, and where to
carry the leather sheath that held a long and keen-edged
hunting-knife. Then he turned to the snowshoes.
They were the long, narrow, bush-country shoe. He
placed them side by side on the snow and showed David
how to fasten his moccasined feet in them without using
his hands. For three-quarters of an hour after that,
out in the soft, deep snow in the edge of the spruce, he
gave him his first lesson in that slow, swinging, out-
stepping stride of the North-man on the trail. At first
it was embarrassing for David, with Thoreau and the
Indians grinning openly, and Marie’s face peering cau-
tiously and joyously from the cabin door. Three times
he entangled his feet hopelessly and floundered like a
great fish in the snow; then he caught the “swing ’’ of
it, and at the end of half an hour began to find a
pleasurable exhiiaration, even excitement, in his ability
to skim over the feathery surface of this great white sea
without so much as sinking to his ankle-bones. Wen
82

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The Start for the North

he slipped off the shoes, and stodd them up beside his
rifle against the cabin, he was panting. His heart was
pounding. His lungs drank in the cold, balsam-scented
air like a suction-pump and expelled each breath with
the sibilancy of steam escaping from a valve.

“Winded,” he gasped. And then, gulping for
breath as he looked at Father Roland, he demanded:
“How the devil am I going to keep up with you fellows
on the trail? I'll go bust inside of a mile! ”

“And every time you go bust we’ll load you on the
sledge,” comforted the missioner, his round face glow-
ing with enthusiastic approval. “You've done finely,
David. Within a fortnight you’ll be travelling twenty
miles a day on snowshoes.”

He suddenly seemed to think of something that he
had forgotten, and fidgeted with his mittens in his hesi-
tation, as if there lay an unpleasant duty ahead of him.
Then he said :

“If there are any letters to write, David—any busi-
ness matters——”

“There are no letters,” cut in David quickly. “I
attended to my affairs some weeks ago. I am ready.”

With a frozen whitefish he returned to Baree. The
dog scented him before the crunch of his footsteps could
be heard in the snow, and when he came out from the
thick spruce and balsam into the little open Baree was
stretched out flat on his belly, his gaunt grey muzzle
resting on the snow between his forepaws. He made no
movement as David drew near, except that curious
shivers ran through his body and his throat twitched.
Thoreau would have analysed that impassive posture as
one of waiting and watchful treachery; David saw in it
a strange yearning, a deep fear, a hope. Baree, out-

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

lawed by man, battered and bleeding as he lay there,
felt, for perhap. the first time in his life, the thrilling
Presence of a friend—a man-friend. David approached
boldly, and stood over him. He had forgotten the
Frenchman’s warning. He was not afraid. He leaned
over, and one of his mittened hands touched Baree’s
neck. A tremor shot through the dog that was like
an electrical shock ; a snarl gathered in his throat, broke
down, and ended in a low whine. He lay as if dead
under the weight of David’s hand. Not until David had
ceased talking to him, and had disappeared once more
in the direction of the cabin, did Baree begin devouring
the frozen whitefish.

Father Roland meditated in some perplexity when
it came to the final question of Baree.

“We can’t put him in with the team,” he protested.
“All my dogs would be dead before we reached God’s
Lake.”

David had been thinking of that.

“He will follow me,” he said confidently. “We'll
simply turn him loose when we're ready to start.”

The missioner nodded indulgently. Thoreau, who
had overheard, shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
He hated Baree, the beast that would not yield to a
club, and he muttered gruffly :

“And to-night he will join the wolves, m’sieu, and
prey like the very devil on my traps. There will only
be one cure for that—a fox-bait !—poison ! ”

And the last hour seemed to prove that what Thoreau
had said was true. After dinner the three of them went
to Baree, and David unfastened the chain from the big
husky’s collar. For a few moments the dog did not
seem to sense his freedom; then, like a shot—so unex-

The Start for the North

pectedly that he almost took David off his feet—he
leaped over the birch log and disappeared in the forest.
The Frenchman was amused.

“The wolves,” he reminded softly. ‘He will be with
them to-night, m’sieu, that outlaw!”

Not until the crack of Mukoki’s long caribou-gut
whip had set the missioner’s eight dogs tense and alert
in their traces did Father Roland return for a moment
into the cabin to give Marie the locket. He came back
quickly, and at a signal from him Mukoki wound up
the nine-feet lash of his whip and set out ahead of the
dogs. They followed him slowly and steadily, keeping
the broad runners of the sledge in the trail he made.
The missioner dropped in immediately behind the
sledge, and David behind him. Thoreau spoke a last
word to David in a voice intended for his ears alone.

“It is a long way to God’s Lake, m’sieu, and you
are going with a strange man—a strange man. Some
day, if you have not forgotten Pierre Thoreau, you may
tell me what it has been a long time in my heart to
know. The Saints be with you, m’sieu! ”

He dropped back. His voice rolled after them in
a last farewell, in French and in Cree, and as David
followed close behind the missioner he wondered what
Thoreau’s mysterious words had meant, and why he
had not spoken them until that final moment of their
departure. A strange man! The Saints be with you!
That last had seemed to him almost a warning. He
looked at Father Roland’s broad back—for the first time
he noticed how heavy and powerful his shoulders were
for his height. Then the forest swallowed them—a
vast, white, engulfing world of silence and mystery.
What did it hold for him? What did it portend? His

The Girl Beyond the Trail

blood was stirred by an unfamiliar and subdued excite-
ment. An almost unconscious movement carried one of
his mittened hands to his breast pocket. Through the
thickness of his coat he could feel it—the picture. It
did not seem like a dead thing. It beat with life. It
made him strangely unafraid of what might be ahead
of him.

Back at the door of the cabin Thoreau stood with
one of his big arms encircling Marie’s slim shoulders.

“T tell you it is like taking the life of a puppy, ma
chére,” he was saying. “It is inconceivable. It is
bloodthirsty. And yet-— -””

He opened the door behind them.

“They are gone,” he finished. “Ka sakhet—they
are gone—and they will not come back!”

ie
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PORE

CHAPTER IX

ON THE TRAIL

IN spite of the portentous significance of this day in his
life David could not help seeing and feeling in his
suddenly changed environment, as he puffed along be-
hind Father Roland, something that was neither
adventure nor romance, but humour. A _ whimsical
humour at first, but growing grimmer as his thoughts
sped. All his life he had lived in a great city, he had
been a part of its life—a discordant note in it, and yet
a part of it for all that. He had been a fixture in a
certain lap of luxury. That luxury had refined him. It
had manicured him down to a fine point of civilisation.
A fine point! He wanted to laugh, but he had need of
all his breath as he clip-clip-clipped on his snowshoes
behind the missioner. This was the last thing in the
world he had dreamed of, all this snow, all this empti-
ness that loomed up ahead of him, a great world filled
only with trees and winter. He disliked winter; he had
always possessed a physical antipathy for snow;
romance, for him, was environed in warm climes and
sunny seas. He had made a mistake in telling Father
Roland that he was going to British Columbia. A
great mistake. Undoubtedly he would have kept on.
Japan had been in his mind. And now here he was
headed straight for the North Pole—the Arctic Ocean.
It was enough to make him want to laugh. Enough to
make any sane person laugh. Even now, only half a
87

The Girl Beyond the Trail

mile from Thoreau’s cabin, his knees were beginning
to ache and his ankles were growing heavy. It was
ridiculous. Inconceivable, as the Frenchman had said
to Marie. He wass ft. He was only half aman. How
long would he last? How long before he would have
to cry quits, like a whipped boy? How iong before
his legs would crumple up under him, and his lungs
give out? How long before Father Roland, hiding his
contempt, would have to send him back ?

A sense of shame—shav e and anger—swept through
him, heating his brain, setting his teeth hard, filling him
again with a grim determination. For the second time
that day his fighting blood rose. It surged through his
veins in a flood, beating down the old barriers, clearing
away the obstructions of his doubts and his fears, and
filling him with the desire to go on—the desire to fight
it out, to punish himself as he deserved to be punished,
and to win in‘tne end. Father Roland, glancing back
in benignant solicitude, saw the new glow in David’s
eyes. He saw, also, his parted lips and the quickness
of his breath. With a sharp command he stopped
Mukoki and the dogs.

“Half a mile at a time is enough for a beginner,”
he said to David. “Kick off your shoes and ride the
next half mile.”

David shook his head.

“Go on,” he said terse'y, saving his wind. ‘I’m
just finding myself.”

Father Roland loaded and lighted his pipe. The
aroma of tobacco filled David’s nostrils as they went
on. Clouds of smoke wreathed the little missioner’s
shoulders as he followed the trail ahead of him. It
was comforting, that smoke. It warmed David with a

Ome”

On the Trail

fresh desire. His exertion was clearing out his lungs.
He was inhaling balsam and spruce, a mighty tonic of
dry forest air, and he felt also the craving to smoke.
But he knew that he could not afford the waste of
breath. His snowshoes were growing heavier and
heavier, and back ot his knees his tendons seemed pre-
paring to snap. He kept on, at last counting his steps.
He was determi. ed to .aake a mile. He was ready to
groan when a sudden twist in the trail brought them
out of the forest to the edge of a lake whose frozen sur-
face stretched ahead of them for miles. Mukoki stopped
the dogs. With a gasp David floundered to the sledge
and sat down.

“Finding myself,” he managed to say. ‘“Just—
finding myself!”

It was a triumph for him, | = last half of that mile.
He knew it. He felt it. Through the white haze of
his breath he looked out over the lake. It was wonder-
fully clear, and the sun was shining. The surface of
the lake was like an untracked carpet of white, scattered
thickly with tiny dian.onds, wher the sunlight fell on
its countless billions of snow-crystals. Three or four
miles away he could see the dark edge of the forest on
the other side. Up and down the lake the distance was
greater. He had . seen anything like it. It was
marvellous. Like a dream picture. And he was not
cold as he looked at it. He was warm, even uncom-
fortably warm. The air he breathed was like a new
kind of fuel. It gave him the peculiar sensation of
feeling larger inside; he seemed to drink it in; it ex-
panded his lungs; he could feel his heart pumping with
an audible sound. There was nothing in the majesty
and wonder of the scene about him to make him laugh,

The Girl Beyond the Trail

but he laughed. It was exultation, an involuntary out-
burst of the change that was working in him. He felt,
suddenly, that a dark and purposeless world had slipped
behind him. It was gone. It was as if he had come
out of a dark and gloomy cavern, in which the air had
been vitiated and in which he had been cramped for
breath; a cavern which fluttered with the uneasy ghosts
of things, poisonous things. Here was the sun. A
sky blue as sapphire. A great expanse. A wonder-
world. Into this he had escaped !

That was the thought in his mind as he looked at
Father Roland. The little missioner was looking at him
with an effulgent satisfaction in his face, a satisfaction
that was half pride, as though he had achieved some-
thing that was to his own personal glory.

“You’ve beat me, David,” he exulted. ‘The first
time I had on snowshoes I didn’t make one-half that
distance before I was tangled up like a fish in a net!”
He turned to Mukoki. ‘“ Meyoo iss e chikao!’’ he cried.
““Remember ?” and the Indian nodded, his leathery face
breaking into a grin.

David felt a new pleasure at their approt.. ~ He
had evidently done well, exceedingly well. he
had been afraid of himself! Apprehensior . ‘ay
to confidence. He was beginning to expe......e thr

exquisite thrill of fighting against odds.

He made no objection this time when Father Roland
made a place for him on the sledge.

“We'll have four miles of this lake,” the missioner
explained to him, “and the dogs will make it in an
hour. Mukoki and I will both break trail.”

As they set off David found his first opportunity to
see the real Northland in action—the clean, sinuous

On the Trail

movement of the men ahead of him, the splendid eager-
ness with which that long, wolfish line of beasts stretched
forth in their traces and followed in the snowshoe trail.
There was something imposing about it all, something
that struck deep within him and roused strange thoughts.
This that he saw was not the mere labour of man and
beast; it was not the humdrum toil of life, not the daily
slaving of living creatures for existence, for food, and
drink, and a sleeping place. It had risen above that.
He had seen ships and castles rise up from heaps of
steel and stone; achievements of science and the handi-
work of genius had interested and sometimes amazed
him; but never had he looked upon physical effort that
thrilled him as this that he was looking upon now.
There was almost the spirit of the epic about it. They
were the survival of the fittest—these men and dogs.
They had gone through the great test of life in the raw,
as the Pyramids and the Sphinx had outlived the
ordeals of the centuries; they were different; they were
proven; they were of another kind ~“ flesh and blood
than he had known, and they fascina ed him. They
stood for more than romance and adventure, for more
than tragedy or possible joy; they were making no
fight for riches, no fight for power, or fame, or great
personal achievement. Their struggle in this great
white world, terrible in its emptiness, its vastness,
and its mercilessness for the weak, was simply a struggle
that they might live. The thought staggered him.
Could there be joy in that—in a mere existence without
the thousand pleasures and luxuries and excitements that
he had known? He drank deeply of the keen air as he
asked himself the question. His eyes rested on the
shaggy, undulating backs of the big huskies; he noted
G 91

The Girl Beyond the Trail

their half-open jaws, the sharp alertness of their pointed
ears, the almost joyous unction with which they entered
into their task, their eagerness to keep their load close
upon the heels of their masters. He heard Mukoki’'s
short, sharp, and unnecessary commands, his “Hi-
yi’s!” and his “Ki-yi’s!” as though he were crying
out for no other reason than from sheer physical ex-
uberation. He saw Father Roland’s face turned back-
ward for a moment, and it was smiling. They were
happy—now! Men and beasts were happy. And he
could see no reason for their happiness except that their
blood was pounding through their veins, even as it was
pounding through his own. That was it—the blood.
The heart. The lungs. The brain. All were clear—
clear and unfettered in that marvellous air and sunlight,
washed clean by the swift pulse of life. It was a wonder-
ful world! A glorious world! He was almost on the
point of crying out his discovery aloud.

The thrill grew in him as he found time now to look
about. Under him the broad steel runners of the sledge
made a cold, creaking sound as they slipped over the
snow that lay only four or five “~ches deep out her’ 1
the lake; he heard the swift tap, tap, tap of the do,’
feet, their panting breath that was almost like laughter,
low throat-whines, and the steady swish of the snow-
shoes ahead. Beyond those sounds a vast silence en-
compassed him. He looked out into it, east and west
to the dark rims of forest, north and south over the dis-
tance of that diamond-sprinkled tundra of unbroken
white. He drew out his pipe, loaded it with tobacco,
and began to smoke. The bitterness of the weed was
gone. It was delicious. He puffed luxuriously. And
then suddenly, as he looked at the purplish bulwarks

On the Trail

of the forests, his mind Swept back. For the first time
since that night many months ago he thought of the
woman—the golden guddess—without a red-hot fire in
his brain. He thought of her coolly. This new world
was already giving back to him a power of analysis,
of perspective, a healthier conception of truths and
measurements. What a horrible blot they had made
in his life—that man and woman! What a foul trick
they had played him! What filth they had wallowed
in! And he—he had thought her the most beautiful
creature in the world, an angel, a thing to be wor-
shipped! He laughed, almost without sound, his teeth
biting hard on the stem of his pine. And the world
he was looking upon laughed; the snow-diamonds,
lying thickly as dust, laughed; there was laughter in
the sun, the warmth of chuckling humour in those
glowing walls of forest, laughter in the blue sky above.

His hands gripped hard.

In this world he knew there could not be another
woman such as she. Here, in all this emptiness and
glory, her shallow soul would have shrieked in agony ;
she would have shrivelled up and died. It was toc
clean. Too white. Too pure. It would have frigh:-
ened her, tortured her. She could not have found the

Poison she required to give her life. Her unclean de-
Sires would have driven

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

a big world, so vast that he still could not comprehend
it. Bur she was there. Living. Breathing. Alive!
A sudden impulse made him draw the picture from his
pocket. He held it down behind a bale, so that Father
Roland would not chance to see it if he looked back.
He unwrapped the picture, and ceased to puff at his
pipe. The Girl was wonderful to-day, under the sun-
light and the blue halo of the skies, and she wanted to
speak to him. That thought always came to him first
of all when he looked at her. She wanted to speak.
Her lips were trembling, her eyes were looking straight
into his, the sun above him seemed to gleam in her hair.
It was as if she knew of the thoughts that were in his
mind, and of the fight he was making; as though
through space she had seen him, and watched him, and
wanted to cry out for him the way to come. There was
a curious tremble in his fingers as he restored the picture
to his pocket. He whispered something. His pipe
had gone out. In the same moment a sharp cry from
Father Roland startled him. The dogs halted sud-
denly. The creaking of the sledge runners ceased.

Father Roland had turned his face down the lake
and was pointing.

“Look!” he cried.

David jumped from the sledge and stared back over
their trail. The scintillating gleams of the snow-
crystals were beginning to prick his eyes, and for a few
*,aments he could see nothing new. He heard a muffled
ejaculation of surprise from Mukoki. And then, far
back—probably half a mile—he saw a dark object
travelling slowly toward them. It stopped. It was
motionless as a dark rock now. Close beside him the
little missioner said :

On the Trail

“You've won again, David. Baree is following
us!’

The dog came no nearer as they watched. After \
moment David pursed his lips and sent back a curious,
piercing whistle. In days to come Baree was to recog-
nise that call, but he gave no attention to it now. For
several minutes t' :y stood gazing back at him. When
they were ready ‘© go on David for a third time tha:
day put on his s.1owshoes. His task » med !ess diffi-
cult. He was getting on to the “swing of the shoes,
and his breath came easier. At the end of half an
hour Father Roland halted the team again to give him
a “winding” spell. Baree had come nearer. He was
not more than a quarter of a mile behind. It was three
o’clock when they strick off the lake into the edge of
the forest to the north-west. The sun had grown cold
and pale. The snow crystals no longer sparkled so
furiously. In the forest there was gathering a grey,
silent gloom. They halted again in the edge of that
gloom. The missioner slipped off his mittens and
filled his ; ‘"e with fre. tobacco. The pipe fell fron.
his fingers, and buried self in the soft snow at his feet.
As he bent down for it Father Roland said, quite
audibly :

i D wad ! ”

He :.cs smiling when he rose. David, also, was
smiling.

“I was thinking,” he said, as though the other had
demanded an explanation of his thoughts, “what a
curious man of God you are, mon pére!”

The little missioner chuckled, and then he muttered,
half to himself, as he lighted the tobacco: “ True—verv
true.” When the top of the bowl was glowing, }

The Girl Beyond the Trail

added: “How are your legs? It is still a good mile
to the shack.”

“I am going to make it or drop,” declared David.

He wanted to ask a question. It had been in his
mind for some time, and he burned with a strange
eagerness to have it answered. He looked back, and
saw Baree circling slowly over the surface of the lake
toward the forest. Casually he inquired :

“How far is it to Tavish’s, mon pére?”

“Four days,” said the missioner. “Four days, if we
make good time, and another week from there to God’s
Lake. I have paid Tavish a visit in five days, and
once Tavish made God’s Lake in two days and a night
with seven dogs. Two days and a night! Through
darkness he came—darkness and a storm. That is
what fear will do, David. Fear drove him. I have
promised to tell you about it to-night. You must know,
to understand him. He is a Strange man—a very
Strange man!”

He spoke to Mukoki in Cree, and the Indian re-
sponded with a sharp command to the dogs. The
huskies sprang from their bellies, and strained forward
in their traces. The Cree picked his way slowly ahead
of them. Father Roland dropped in behind him. Again
David followed the sledge. He was struck with wonder
at the suddenness with which the sun had gone out. In
the thick forest it was like the beginning of night. The
deep shadows and darkly growing caverns of gloom
seemed to give birth to new sounds. He heard the
whit, whit, whit of something close to him, and the
next moment a great snow owl flitted like a ghostly
apparition over his head; he heard the patter of snow
as it fell from the bending limbs; from out of a patch

wt se SS SS we a lm hlU el 6h ee Ce Oe:

On the Trail

of darkness two trees, rubbing slightly against each
other, emitted a shivering wail that startled him for a
moment, it had seemed so like the cry of a child. He
was straining his ears so tensely to hear, and his eyes
to see, that he forgot the soreness of his knees and
ankles. Now and then the dogs stopped while Mukoki
and the missioner dragged a log or a bit of brushwood
from their path. During one of these intervals there
came to them, from a great distance, a long, mournful
howl.

“A wolf,” said Father Roland, his face a grey
shadow as he nodded at David. “Listen! ”

From behind them came another cry. It was Baree.

They went on, circling around the edge of a great
windfall. A low wind was beginning to move in the
tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow
fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and play-
ful hands were pelting them from above. Again and
again David caught the swift, ghostly flutter of the
snow owls, three times he heard the wolf howl, once
again Baree’s dismal, homeless cry ; and then they came
suddenly out of the thick gloom of the forest into the
twilight grey of a clearing. Twenty paces from them
was a cabin. The dogs stopped. Father Roland
fumbled at his big silver watch, and held it close up to
his eyes.

“Half-past four,” he said. “Fairly good time for a
beginner, David! ”

He broke into a whistle. It was cheerful. The
dogs were whining and snapping like joyous puppies
as Mukoki unfastened them. The Cree himself was
voluble in a chuckling and meaningless way. There
was a great contentment in the air, some sort of inde-

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

finable inspiration that seemed to lift the gloom. David
could not understand it, though in an elusive sort of
way he felt it. He did not understand until Father
Roland said, across the sledge, which he had begun to
unpack :

“Seems good to be on the trail again, David.”

That was it—the trail! This was the end of a day’s
achievement. He looked at the cabin, dark and un-
lighted in the open, with its big white cap of snow. It
looked friendly for all its darkness. He was filled, sud-
denly, with the desire to become a partner in the
activities of Mukoki and the missioner. He wanted
to help, not because he placed any value on his assist-
ance, but simply because his blood and his brain were
impinging new desires upon him. He kicked off his
snowshoes, and went with Mukoki to the door of the
cabin, which was fastened with a wooden bolt. When
they entered he could make out things indistinctly—a
Stove at first, a stool, a box, a small table, and a bunk
against the wall. Mukoki was rattling the lids of the
stove when Father Roland entered with his arms filled.
He dropped his load on the floor, and David went back
to the sledge with him. By the time they had brought
its burden into the cabin a fire was roaring in the stove,
and Mukoki had hung a lighted lantern over the table.
Then Father Roland seized an axe, tested its keen edge
with his thumb, and said to David: “Let’s go cut
our beds before it’s too dark.” Cut their beds! The
missioner’s broad back was disappearing through the
door in a very purposeful way, and David caught up a
second axe and followed. Young balsams, twice as
tall as a man, were growing about the cabin, and from
these Father Roland began stripping the branches.

On the Trail

They carried armfuls into the cabin, until the one bunk
was heaped high, and meanwhile Mukoki had half a
dozen pots and kettles and pans on the glowing top of
the sheet-iron stove, and thick caribou steaks were
sizzling in a homelike and comforting way. A little
later David ate as though he had gone hungry all day.
Ordinarily he wanted his steaks well done; to-night he
devoured an inch-and-a-quarter sirloin that floated in
its Own gravy, and was red to the heart of it. When
they had finished they lighted their pipes and went out
to feed the dogs a frozen fish apiece.

An immense satisfaction possessed David. It was
like something soft and purring inside of him. He
made no effort to explain things. He was accepting
facts and changes. He felt bigger to-night, as though
his lungs were stretching themselves and his chest
expanding. His fears were gone. He no longer saw
anything to dread in the white wilderness. He was
eager to go on, eager to reach Tavish’s. Ever since
Father Roland had spoken of Tavish that desire had
been growing in him. Tavish had not only come from
the Stikine River; he had lived on Firepan Creek. It
was incredible that he should not know of the Girl.
Who she was. Just where she lived. Why she was
there. White people were few in that far country.
Tavish would surely know of her. He had made up
his mind that he would show Tavish the picture, keep-
ing to himself the manner in which he had come into
possession of it. The daughter of a friend, he would
tell them—both Father Roland and Tavish. Or of an
acquaintance. That, at least, was half truth.

A dozen things Father Roland spoke about that
night before he brought up Tavish. David waited. He

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

did not want to appear too deeply interested. He de-
sired to have the thing work itself out in a fortuitous
sort of way, governed, as he was, by a strong feeling
that he could not explain his position, or his strange
and growing interest in the girl, if the missioner should
by any chance discover the part he had played in the
adventure on the train.

“Fear—a great fear—his life is haunted by it,” said
Father Roland, when at last he began talking about
Tavish. He was seated on a pile of balsams, his legs
stretched out flat on the floor, his back to the wall, and
he smoked thoughtfully as he looked at David. “A
coward? I don’t know. I have seen him jump at the
snap of a twig. I have seen him tremble at nothing at
all. I have seen him shrink at darkness, and then,
again, he came through a terrible darkness to reach my
cabin that night. Mad? No, he is not that. It is
hard to believe he is a coward. Would a coward live
alone, as he does? That seems impossible too. And
yet he is afraid. That fear is always close at his heels,
especially at night. It follows him like a hungry dog.
There are times when I would swear it is not fear of a
living thing. That is what makes it—disturbing. It
is weird. Distressing. It makes one shiver.”

The missioner was silent for some moments, as if lost
in a reverie. Then he said, reflectively :

“I have seen strange things. I have had many
penitents. My ears have heard much that you weuld
not believe. It has all come in my long day’s work in
the wilderness. But never, never have I seen a fight
like this that is being made by Tavish, a fight against
that mysterious fear of which he will not speak. I
would give a year of my life, yes, even more, to help

100

On the Trail

le- him. There is scinething about him that is lovable,
us that makes you want to cling to him, be near him. But
ig he will have none of that. He wants to be alone, with
ze his fear. Is it not strange? I have pieced little things
Id togethe:, and that night, when terror drove him to my
he cabin, he betrayed himself, and I learned one thing. He
is afraid of a woman! ”
id “ “A woman!” gasped David.
ut “Yes, a woman—a woman who lives, or lived, up in
2s that Stikine River country you mentioned to-day.”
id David’s heart stirred strangely.
A “The Stikin River, or—or Firepan Creek?” he
1e asked.
at It seemed a long time to him before Father Roland
n, answered. He was thinking deeply, with his eyes half
y closed, as though striving to recall things that he had
is forgotten.
re “Yes, it was on the Firepan. I am sure of it,” he
id said slowly. “He was sick—smallpox, as I told you—
s, and it was on the Firepan. I remember that. And
, whoever the woman was, she was there. A woman !
A And he—afraid! Afraid even now, with her a thousand
It miles away, if she lives. Can you account for it? I
would give a great deal to know. But he will say
st nothing. And—it is not my business to intrude. Yet
I have guessed. I have my own conviction. It is
y terrible.”
d He spoke in a low voice, lookir Straight at
n David.
t “And that conviction, father?” David barely
t whispered.
I “Tavish is afraid of someone who is dead.”
“Dead!”
101

“a E

The Girl Bevond the Trail

“Yes, a woman—or a girl—who is dead; dcad in the
flesh, but living in the spirit to haunt him. It is that. I
know it. And he will not bare his soul io me.”

“A girl—who is dead—on J irepan Creek. Her
spirit——”

A cold, invisible hand was clutching at David's
throat. Shadows hid his face, or Father Roland would
have seen. His voice was strained. He forced it be-
tween his lips.

“Yes, her spirit,” came the missioner’s answer, and
David heard the scrape of his knife as he cleaned out
the bowl of his pipe. “It haunts Tavish. It is with
him always. Avid he is afiaid of it!”

David rose slowly to his feet and went toward the
door, siipping on his coat and cap. “I am going to
whistle for Baree,” he said, and went out. The white
world was brilliant under the glow of a full moon and a
billion stars. It was the most wonderful night he had
ever seen, and yet for a few moments he was as
oblivious of its amazing beauty, its almost startling
vividness, as though he had passed out into darkness.

“A gitl—Firepan—dead—haunting Tavish——”

He did not hear the whining of the dogs. He was
piecing together in his mind that picture again—the
barefoc‘ed girl standing on the rock, disturbed, startled,
terrified, poised as if about to fly from a great danger.
What had happened after the taking of that picture ?
Was it Tavish who had taken it? Was it Tavish who
had surprised her there? Was it Tavish—Tavish—
Tavish——

His mind could not goon. He steadied himself, one
hand clutching at the breast of his coat, where the
picture lay.

102

On the Trail

The cabin door opened behind him. The missioner
came out. He coughed, and looked up at the sky.

“A splendid night, David,” he said softly. “A
splendid night!”

He spoke in « strange, quiet voice that made David
turn. The little missioner was facing the moon. He
was gazing off into that wonder-world of forests, and
snow, and stars and mooniight in a fixed and steady
gaze, and :: seemed to David that he aged, and shrank
into smaller form, and that his shoulders drooped as if
under a weight. And all at once David saw in his face
what he had seen once before in the train—a forgetful-
ness of all things but one, the lifting of a strange curtain,
the baring of a soul; and for a few moments Father
Roland stood with his face turned to the light of the
skies, as if preoccupied by an all-pervading and hopeless
grief.

103

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CHAPTER X
IN SIGHT OF TAVISH’S

Ir was Baree who disturbed the silent tableau in the
moonlight. David was staring at the missioner, held
by that look of anguish that had settled so quickly and
so strangely in his face, as if this bright night with its
moon and stars had recalled to him a great sorrow, when
they heard again the wolf-dog’s howl out in the forest.
It was quite near. David, with his eyes still on the
other, saw Father Roland start, as if for an instant he
had forgotten where he was. The missioner looked his
way and straightened his shoulders slowly, with a smile
on his lips that was strained and wan as the smile of one
worn out by arduous toil.

“A splendid night,” he repeated, and he raised a
ncked hand to his head, as if slowly brushing away
something from before his eyes. “It was a night like
this—this—fifteen years ago——”

He stopped. In the moonlight he brought himself
together with a jerk. He came and laid a hand on
David’s shoulder.

“That was Baree,” he said. ‘The dog has followed
us.”

“He is not very far in the forest,” answered David.

“No. He smells us. He is waiting out there for
you.”

There was a moment’s silence between them as they
listened.

104

— Pe ee CD

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In Sight ef Tavish’s

“T will take him a fish,” said David then. “I am
sure he will come to me.”

Mukoki had hoisted the gunny sack full of fish well
up against the roof of the cabin to keep it from chance
marauders of the night, and Father Roland stood by
while David lowered it and made a choice for Baree’s
supper. Then he re-entered the cabin when David went
toward the forest with his fish.

It was not Baree who drew David slowly into the
forest. He wanted to be alone, away from Father
Roland and the quiet, insistent scrutiny of the Cree.
He wanted to think, ask himself questions, find answers
for them if he could. His mind was just beginning to
rouse itself to the significance of the events of the past
day and night, and he was like one bewildered by a
great mystery, and startled by visions of a possible
tragedy. Fate had played with him Strangely. It had
linked him with happenings that ~ere inexplicable and
unusual, and he believed that tiey were not without
their meaning for him. More or less of a fatalist, he
was inspired by the sudden and disturbing thought that
they had happened by inevitable necessity. Vividly he
Saw again the dark, haunting eyes of the woman in the
train, and heard again the few low, tense words with
which she had revealed to him her quest of a man—a
man by the name of Michael O’Doone. In her pre-
sence he had felt the nearness of tragedy. It had
stirred him deeply, almost as deeply as the picture she
had left in her seat—the picture hidden now against his
breast, like a thing which must rot be betrayed, and
which a strange and compelling instinct had made him
associate in such a Startling way with Tavish. He
could not get Tavish out of his mind; Tavish, the

105

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

haunted man; Tavish, the man who had fled from the
Firepan Creek country at just about the time the girl in
the picture had stood on that rock beside the pool;
Tavish, terror-driven by a spirit of the dead! He did
not attempt to reason the matter, or bare the folly of his
alarm. He did not ask himself about the improbability
of it all, but accepted without equivocation that strong
impression as it had come to him—the conviction that
the girl on the rock and the woman in the train were in
some way identified with the flight of ‘:avish, the man
he had never seen, from that far valley in the north-
west mountains.

The questions he asked himself now were not to
establish in his own mind either the truth or the absur-
dity of this conviction. He was determining within
himself whether or not to confide in Father Roland. It
was more than delicacy that made him hesitate; it was
almost a personal shame. For a long time he had kept
within his breast the secret of his own tragedy and dis-
honour. That it was his dishonour, almost as much as
the woman’s, had been his peculiar viewpoint; and how,
at last, he had come to reveal that corroding sickness in
his soul to a man who was almost a stranger was more
than he could quite understand. But he had done just
that. Father Roland had seen him stripped down to the
naked truth in an hour of great need, and .1e had p +
out a hand in time to save him. He no longer doubted
this last consuming fact. Twenty times since then,
coldly and critically, he had thought of the woman who
had been his wife, and slowly and terribly the enormity
of her crime had swept farther and farther away from
him the anguish of her loss. He was like a man risen
from a sick bed, breathing freely again, tasting once

106

In Sight of Tavish’s

more the flavour of the air that filled his lungs. All
this he owed to Father Roland, and because of this, and
his confessions of only two nights ago, he felt a burn-
ing humiliation in the thought of telling the missioner
that another face had come to fill his thoughts and stir
his anxieties. And what less could he tell him if he
confided in him at all ?

He had gone a hundred yards or more into the
forest, and in a little open space, lighted up like a tiny
amphitheatre in the glow of the moon, he stopped.
Suddenly there had come to him, thrilling in its pro-
mise, a key to the situation. He would wait until they
reached Tavish’s. And then, in the presence of the
missioner, he would suddenly show Tavish the picture.
His heart throbbed uneasily as he anticipated the pos-
sible tragedy—the sudden betrayal—of that moment,
for Father Roland had said, like one who had glimpsed
beyond the ken of human eyes, that Tavish was haunted
by a vision of the dead. The dead! Could it be that
she, the girl in the picture—— He shook himself, set
his lips tight to get the thought away from him. And
the woman—the woman in the train, the woman who
had left in her seat this picture that was growing in his
heart like a living thing—who was she? Was her qucst
one of vengeance—of retribution ? Was Tavish the
man she was seeking ? Up in that mountain valley,
where the girl had stood on the rock, had his name
been Michael O’Doone ?

He was trembling when he went on, deeper into the
forest. But of his determination there was no longer a
doubt. He would Say nothing to Father Roland until
Tavish had seen the picture.

Until now he had forgotten Baree.

In the disquiet-
H 107

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

ing fear with w' ‘ch his thoughts were weighted he had
lost hold of the tact that in his hand ue still carried the
slightly curved and solidly frozen substance ofafish. A
movement of a body near him, so unexpected and alarm-
ingly close that a cry broke from his lips as he leaped to
one side, roused him with a sudden mental shock. The
beast, whatever it was, had passed within six feet of
him, and now, twice that distance away, stood like a
statue hewn out of stone levelling at him the fiery gleam
of a solitary eye. Until he saw that one eye, and not
two, David did not breathe. Then he gasped. The
fish had fallen from his fingers. He stooped, picked
it up, and called softly: ‘‘Baree!”

The dog was waiting for his voice. His one eye
shifted, slanting like a searchiight in the direction of the
cabin, and turned swiftly back to C :vid. He whined,
and David spoke to him again, calling his name, and
holding out the fish. For severa! moments Baree did
not move, but eyed him with the immobility of a half-
blinded sphinx. Then, suddenly, he dropped on his
belly and began crawling slowly toward him.

A spatter of moonlight fell upon them as David,
crouching on his heels, gave Baree the fish, holding for
a moment to the tail of it while the hungry beast seized
its head between his powerful jaws with a grinding
crunch. The power of those jaws sent a little shiver
through the man so close to them. They were terrible
—and splendid. A man’s leg-bone would have cracked
between them like a pipe-stem. And Baree, with that
power of death in his jaws, had a second time crept to
him on his belly—not fearingly, in the shadow of a club,
but like a thing tamed into slavery by a yearning adora-
tion. It was a fact that seized upon David with a pecu-

108

In Sight of Tavish’s

liar hold. It built up between them, between this
down-and-out beast and a man fighting to find himself,
a comradeship which perhaps only the man and the
beast could understand. Even as he devorred the fish
Baree kept his one eye on David, as though fearing he
might lose him again if he allowed his gaze to falter for
an instant. The truculency and the menace of that eye
were gone. It was still bloodshot, still burned with a
reddish fire, and a great pity swept through David as
he thought of the blows the club must have given. He
noticed, then, that Baree was making efforts to open the
other eye; he saw the swollen lid flutter, the muscl-
twitch. Impulsively he put out a hand. It fell ur
flinchingly on Baree’s head, and in an instant che
crunching of the dog’s jaws had ceased, and he lay as if
dead. David bent nearer. With the thumb and fore-
finger of his other hand he gently lifted the swollen lid.
It caused a hurt. baree whined softly. His great body
trembled. His ivory fangs clicked, like the teeth of a
man with the ague. To his wolfish soul, trembling in a
body that had been cond-mned, beaten, clubbed almost
to the door of death, that nurt caused by David's fingers
was a caress. His instinct, in this miraculous moment,
was greater than any reason. He understood. He saw
with a vision that was keener than sight. Faith was
born in '.im, and burned like a conflagration. His head
dropped to the snow; a great gasping sigh ran through
him, and his trembling ceased. His good eye closed
slowly as David gently and persistently massaged the
muscles of the other with his thumb and forefinger.
When at last he rose to his feet and returned to the
cabin Baree followed him to the edge of the little clear-
ing.
109

The Girl Beyond the Trail

Mukoki and the missioner had made their beds of
balsam boughs, two on the floor and one in the bunk,
and the Cree had already rolled himself in his blanket
when David entered the shack. Father Roland was
wiping David’s gun.

“We'll give you a little practice with this to-
morrow,” he promised. ‘Do you suppose you can
hit a moose ?”

“IT have my doubts, mon pére.”

Father Roland gave vent to his curious chuckle.

“I have promised to make a marksman of you in
exchange for your—your trouble in teaching me how to
use the gloves,” he said, polishing furiously. There was
a twinkle in his eyes, as if a moment before he had been
laughing to himself. The gloves were on the table.
He had been examining them again, and David found
himself smiling at the childlike and eager interest he
had taken in them. Suddenly Father Roland rubbed
still a little faster, and said :

“If you can’t hit a moose with a bullet you surely
can hit me with these gloves, eh?”

“Yes, quite positively. But I shall be merciful if
you, in turn, show some charity in teaching me how
to shoot.”

The little missioner finished his polishing, set the
rifle against the wall, and took the gloves in his hands.

“It is bright, almost like day outside,” he said a
little yearningly. ‘Are you—tired ?”

His hint was obvious, even to Mukoki, who stared
at him from under his blanket. And David was not
tired. If his afternoon’s work had fatigued him his
exhaustion was forgotten in the mental excitement that
had followed the missioner’s story of Tavish. He took

110

In Sight of Tavish’s

a pair of the gloves in his hands, and nodded toward
the door. ‘“ You mean——”

Father Roland was on his feet.

“If you are not tired. It would give us a better
stomach for sleep.”

Mukoki rolled from his blanket, a grin on his
leathery face. He tied the wrist-laces for them, and
followed them out into the moonlit night, a copper-
coloured gargoyle, illuminated by that fixed and joyous
grin. David saw the look in his face and he wondered
if it would change when he sent the little missioner
bowling over in the snow, which he was quite sure to
do, even if he was careful. He was a splendid boxer.
In the days of his practice he had struck a terrific blow
for his weight. At the Athletic Club he had been noted
for subtle strategy and a cleverness of defence that were
unusual for an amateur. He had invented half a dozen
little tricks of his own. But he felt that he had grown
rusty during the past year and a half. This thought
was in his mind when he tapped the missioner on the
end of his ruddy nose. They had squared away in the
moonlight, eight inches deep in the snow, and there
was a joyous and eager light in Father Roland’s eyes.
The tap on his nose did not dim it. His teeth gleamed,
even as David’s gloves went plunk, plunk against his
nose again. Mukoki, still grinning like a carven thing,
chuckled audibly. David pranced carelessly about the
little missioner, poking him beautifully as he offered
suggestions and criticism.

“You should protect your nose, mon pére "—
plunk!' “And the pit of your stomach ”—plunk!
“And also your ears "—plunk, plunk! “But especially
your nose, mon pére”—pflunk, plunk, plunk!

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

“And sometimes the tip of your jaw, David,”
gurgled Father Roland, and for a few moments night
closed in darkly about David.

When he came fully into his senses again he was
sitting in the snow, with the little missioner bending
over him anxiously, and Mukoki grinning down at him
like a fiend.

“Dear Heaven forgive me!” he heard Father Roland
saying. “I didn’t mean it so hard, David—I didn’t!
But, oh, man, it was such a chance, such a beautiful
chance! And now I’ve spoiled it. I’ve spoiled our fun.”

“Not unless you’re—tired,” said David, gettiog up
on his feet. ‘You took me at a disadvantage, mon
pére. I thought you were green.”

“And you were pulverising my nose,” apologised
Father Roland.

They went at it again, and this time David spared
none of his caution, and offered no advice, and the
missioner no longer posed, but became suddenly as
elusive and as agile as a cat. David was amazed, but
he wasted no breath to demand an explanation. Father
Roland was parrying his straight blows like an adept.
Three times in as many minutes he felt the sting of the
missioner’s glove in his face. In straight-away boxing,
without the finer tricks and artifice of the game, he was
soon convinced that the forest man was almost his
match. Little by little he began to exert the cleverness
of his training. At the end of ten minutes Father
Roland was sitting dazedly in the snow, and the grin
had gone from Mukoki’s face. He had succumbed to
a trick—a swift sidestep, a feint that had held in it an
ambush, and the seat of the little missioner’s reasoning
faculties had rocked. But he was gurgling joyously

112

fi i al
aia:

In Sight of Tavish’s

when he rose to his feet, and with one arm he hugged
David as they returned to the cabin.

“Only one other man has given me a jolt like that
in many a year,” he boasted, a bit proudly. “And that
was Tavish. Tavish is good. He must have lived long
among fighting men. Perhaps that is why I think so
kindly of him. I love a fighting man, if he fights
honourably either with brain or brawn, even more than
I despise a coward.”

“And yet this Tavish, you say, is pursued by a great
fear. Can he be so much of a fighting man, in the
way you mean, and still live in terror of”

“What?”

That single word broke in from the missioner like the
sharp crack of a whip between them.

“Of what is he afraid?” he repeated. “Can you
tell me? Can you guess more than I have guessed?
Is one a coward because he fears whispers that tremble
in the air and sees a face in the darkness of night that
is neither living nor dead? Is he?”

For a long time after he had gone to bed David lay
wide-awake in the darkness, his mind working until it
seemed to him that it was prisoned in an iron chamber
from which it was making futile eiforts to escape. He
could hear the steady breathing of Father Roland and
Mukoki, who were asleep. His own eyes he could
close only in forced efforts to bring upon himself the
unconsciousness of rest. Tavish §!led his mind, Tavish
and the girl—and along with them the mysterious
woman in the train. He struggled with himself. He
told himself how absurd it all was, how grotesquely his
imagination was employing itself with him; how in-
credible it was that Tavish and the girl in the picture

113

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

should be associated in that terrible way that had oc-
curred to him. But he failed to convince himself. He
fell asleep at last, and his slumber was filled with fleet-
ing visions. When he awoke the cabin was filled with
the glow of the lantern. Father Roland and Mukoki
were up, and a fire was crackling in the stove.

The four days that followea broke the last link in
the chain that held David Raine to the life from which
he was fleeing when the forest missioner met him in the
Transcontinental. They were four wonderful days, in
which they travelled steadily northward; days of
splendid sunshine, of intense cold, of brilliant stars and
a full moon at night. The first of these four days
David travelled fifteen miles on his snowshoes, and that
night he slept in a balsam shelter close to the face of a
great rock, which they heated with a fire of logs, so
that all through the cold hours between darkness and
grey dawn the boulder was like a huge warming-stone.
The second day marked also the second great stride in
his education in the life of the wild. Fang and hoof
and padded claw were at large again in the forests after
the blizzard, and Father Roland stopped at each broken
path that crossed their trail, pointing out to him the
Stories that were written in the snow. He showed him
where a fox had followed silently after a snowshoe
rabbit; where a band of wolves had ploughed through
the snow in the trail of a deer that was doomed; and in
a dense run of timber where both moose and caribou
had sought refuge from the storm he explained care-
fully the slight difference between the hoof-prints of the
two. That night Baree came into camp while they
were sleeping, and in the morning they found where he
had burrowed his round bed in the snow not a dozen

114

In Sight of Tavish’s

yards from their snelter. The third mornin- David
shot his moose. And that night he lured Baree almost
to the side of their camp-fire, and tossed him chunks
of raw flesh from where he sat smoking his pipe.

He was changed. ‘hree days on the trail and three
nights in camp under the stars had begun their
promised miracle-working. His face was darkened by
a stubble of beard; his ears and cheek-bones were red-
dened by exposure to cold and wind; he felt that in
those three days and nights his muscles had hardened,
and his weakness had left him. “It was in your mind
—your sickness,” Father Roland had told him, and he
believed it now. He began to find a pleasure in that
physical achievement which he had wondered at in
Mukoki and the missioner. Each noon when they
Stopped to boil their tea and cook their dinner, and
each night when they made camp, he had chopped
down a tree. To-night it had been an eight-inch jack-
pine, tough with pitch. The exertion ‘1ad sent his blood
pounding through him furiously. He was still breath-
ing deeply as he sat near the fire, tossing bits of meat
out to Baree. They were sixty miles from Thoreau’s
cabin, straight north, and for the twentieth time Father
Roland was te'ling him how well he had ‘one.

“And ¢ row,” he added, “we will reach
Tavish’s.”

It had grown upon David that to see Tavish had
become his one great mission in the North. What ad-
venture lay beyond that meeting he did not surmise.
All his thoughts had centred in the single desire to let
Tavish see the picture. To-night, after the missioner
had joined Mukoki in the silk tent buried warmly under
a mass of cut balsam, he sat a little longer beside the

115

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The Girl Beycad the Trail

fire, and asked himself questions which he had not
thought of before. He would see Tavish. He would
show him the picture. And—what then? Would that
be the end of it? He felt, for a moment, uncomfort-
able. Beyond Tavish there was a disturbing and un-
answerable problem. The girl, if she still lived, was
a thousand miles from where he was sitting at this
moment; to reach her, with that distance of mountain
and forest between them, would be like travelling to the
end of the world. It was the first time there had risen
in his mind a definite thought of going to her—if she
were alive. It startled him. It was like a shock. Go
to her? Why? He drew forth the picture from his
coat pocket and stared at the wonder-face of the girl
in the light of the blazing logs. Why? His heart
trembled. He lifted his eyes to the greyish film of
smoke rising between him and the balsam-covered tent,
and slowly he saw another face take form, framed in
that wraith-like mist of smoke—the face of a golden
goddess, laughing at him, taunting him. Laughing—
laughing! .. . He forced his gaze from it with a shudder.
Again he looked at the picture of the girl in his hand.
“She knows. She understands. She comforts me.”
He whispered the words. They were like a breath rising
out of his soul. He replaced the picture in his pocket,
and for a moment held it close against his breast.

The next day, as the swift-thickening gloom of
northern night was descending about them again, the
missioner halted his team on the crest of a boulder-
strewn ridge, and pointing down into the murky plain
at their feet he said, with the satisfaction of one who
has come to a journey’s end:

“There is Tavish’s.”

116

CHAPTER XI

THE FINDING OF TAVISH

THEY went down into the plain. David strained his
eyes, but he could see nothing where Father Roland
had pointed except the purplish sea of forest growing
black in the fading twilight. Ahead of the team Mukoki
picked his way slowly and cautiously among the snow-
hidden rocks, and with the missioner David flung his
weight backward on the sledge to keep it from running
upon the dogs. It was a thick, wild place, and it struck
him that Tavish could not have chosen a spot of more
sinister aspect in which to hide himself and his secret,
even on nights when the stars were out and the moon
shone. It must have been oppressive even then. A
terribly lonely place, and still as death as they went
down into it. They heard not even the howl of a dog,
and surely Tavish had dogs. «ze we~ on the point of
speaking, of asking the missioner why Tavish, haunted
by fear, should bury himself in a place like this when
the lead-dog suddenly stopped, and a low, lingering
whine drifted back to them. David had never heard
anything like that whine. It swept through the line of
dogs, from throat to throat, and the beasts stood stiff-
legged and stark in their traces, staring with eight pairs
of restlessly blazing eyes into the wall of darkness ahead.
The Cree had turned, but the sharp command on his lips
had frozen there. David saw him standing ahead of
the team as silent and as motionless as rock. From him
117

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

he looked into the missioner’s face. Father Roland
was staring. There was a strange suspense in his
breathing. And then, suddenly, the lead-dog sat back
on his haunches, and turning his grey muzzle up to the
sky emitted a long and mournful howl. There was
something about it that made David shiver. Mukoki
came staggering back through the snow like a sick man.

“ Nipoo-win Ooyoo!” he said, his eyes shining like
points of flame. A shiver seemed to be running through
him.

For a moment the missioner did not seem to hear
him. Then he cried:

“Give them the whip! Drive them on!”

The Cree turned, unwinding his long lash.

“Nipoo-win Ooyoo!” he muttered again.

The whip cracked over the backs of the huskies, the
end of it stinging the rump of the lead-dog, who was
master of them all. A snarl rose for an instant in his
throat, then he straightened out, and the dogs lurched
forward. Mukoki ran ahead, so that the lead-dog was
close at his heels.

“What did he say?” asked David.

In the gloom the missioner made a gesture of pro-
test with his two hands. David could no longer see his
face.

“He is superstitious,” he growled. ‘He is absurd.
He would make the very devil creep. He says that old
Beaver has given the Death Howl. Bah——”

David could feel the other’s shudder in the darkness.
They went on for another hundred yards; with a low
word Mukoki stopped the team. The dogs were whin-
ing softly, staring straight ahead, when David and the
missioner joined the Cree.

118

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The Finding of Tavish

Father Roland pointed to a dark blot in the night
fifty paces beyond them. He spoke to David.

“There is Tavish’s cabin. Come! We will see.”

Mukoki remained with the team. They could hear
the dogs whining as they advanced. The cabin took
shape in their faces, grotesque, dark, lifeless. It wasa
foreboding thing, that cabin. He remembered in a
flash all that the missioner had told him about Tavish.
His pulse was beating swiftly. A shiver ran up his
back, and he was filled with a strange dread. Father
Roland’s voice startled him.

“Tavish! Tavish!” it called.

They stood close to the door, and heard no answer.
Father Roland stamped with his foot, and scraped with
his toe on the ground.

“See, the snow has been cleared away recently,” he
said. ‘Mukoki is a fool. He is superstitious. He
made me, for an instant, afraid.”

There was a vast relief in his voice. The cabin door
was unbolted, and he flung it open confidently. It was
pitch dark inside, but a flood of warm air struck their
faces. The missioner laughed.

“Tavish, are you esleep?” he called.

There was no answer. Father Roland entered.

“He has been here recently. There is a fire in the
stove. We will make ourselves at home.” He fumbled
in his clothes and found a match. A moment later he
struck it, and lighted a tin lamp that hung from the
ceiling. In its glow his face was of a strange colour.
He had been under a strain. The hand that held the
burning match was unsteady. “Strange, very strange,”
he was saying, as if to himself. And then: “ Prepos-
terous! I will go back and tell Mukoki. He is shiver-

119

The Girl Beyond ‘‘:e Trail

ing. He is afraid. He believes that Tavish is in
league with the devil. He says that the dogs know, and
that they have warned him. Queer. Monstrous!
queer. And interesting—eh?”

He went out. David stood where he was, looking
about him in the blurred light of the larnp over his head.
He almost expected Tavish to creep out from some dark
corner; he half expected to see him move from under the
dishevelled blankets in the bunk at the far end of the
room. It was a big room, twenty feet from end ta
end, and almost as wide, and after a moment or two he
knew that he was the only living thing in it, except a
small grey mouse that came fearlessly quite close to his
feet. And then he saw a second mouse, and a third,
and about him, and over him, he heard a creeping,
scurrying noise, as of many tiny feet pattering. <A
paper on the table rustled, a series of squeaks came from
the bunk, he felt something that was like a gentle touch
on the toe of his moccasin, and looked down. The cabin
was alive with mice. It was filied with the restless
movement of them, little bright-eyed creatures who
moved about him without fear, and, he thought, ex-
pectantly. He had not moved an inch when Father
Roland came again into the cabin. He pointed to the
floor.

“The place is alive with them!” he protested.

Father Roland appeared in great good humour as he
slipped off his mittens and rubbed his hands over the
stove.

“Tavish’s pets,” he chuckled. “He Says they’re
company. I’ve seen a dozen of them on his shoulders
at one time. Queer. Queer.”

His hands made a rasping sound as he rubbed them.

120

The Finding of Tavish

Suddenly he lifted a lid from the stove and peered into
the firebox.

“He put fuel in here less than an hour ago,” he said.
‘““Wonder where he can be mooching at this time of
day. The dogs are gone.” He scanned the table. ‘No
supper. Pans clean. Mics hungry. He'll be back
soon. But we won’t wait. I’m famished.”

He spoke swiftly, and filled the stove with wood.
Mukoki began bringing in the dunnage. The uneasy
gleam was still in his eyes. His gaze was shifting, and
restless with expectation. He came and went noise-
lessly, treading as though he feared his footsteps would
awaken someone, and David saw that he was afraid of
the mice. One of them ran up his sleeve as they were
eating supper, and he flung it from him with a strange,
quick breath, his eyes blazing.

“Muche Munito!” he shuddered.

He swallowed the rest of his meat hurriedly, and
after that took his blankets, and with a few words in
Cree to the missioner left the cabin.

“He says they are little devils—the mice,” said
Father Roland, looking after him reflectively. “He will
Sleep near the dogs. I wonder how far his intuition
goes? He believes that Tavish harbours bad spirits
in this cabin, and that they have taken the form of mice.
Pooh! They’re cunning little vermin, Tavish has taught
them tricks. Watch this one feed out of my hand!”

Half a dozen times they had climbed to David’s
shoulders. One of them had nestled in a warm, furry
ball against his neck, and was waiting. They were
companionable. Quite chummy, as the missioner said.
No wonder Tavish harboured them in his loneliness.
David fed them, and let them nibble from his fingers,

1a1

The Girl Beyond the Trail

and yet they gave him a distinctly unpleasant sensation.
When the missioner had finished his last cup of coffee
he crumbled a thick chunk of bannock, and placed it on
the floor back of the stove. The mice gathered
round it in a silent, hungry, nibbling horde. David
tried to count them. There must have been twenty.
He thought he would like to scoop them up in some-
thing—Tavish’s water-pail, for instance—and pitch
them out into the night. The creatures became quieter
after their gorge on bannock crumbs. Most of them
disappeared.

For a long time David and the missioner sat smoking
their pipes, waiting for Tavish. Father Roland was
puzzled, and yet he was assured. He was puzzled
because Tavish’s snowshoes hung on their wooden peg
in one of the cross-logs, and his rifle was in its rack over
the bunk.

“I didn’t know he had another pair of snowshoes,”
he said. “Still, it is quite a time since I have seen him—
a number of weeks. I <-me down in the early November
snow. He is not far away, or he would have taken his
rifle. Probably setting a few fresh poison-baits after
the storm.”

They heard the sweep of a low wind. It often came
at night after a storm, usually from off the Barrens to
the north and west. Something thumped gently against
the outside of the cabin—a low, peculiarly heavy and
soft sort of sound, like a padded object, with only the
log wall separating it from the bunk. Their ears caught
it quite distinctly.

“Tavish hangs his meat out there,” the missioner
explained, observing the sudden direction of David’s
eyes. ‘A haunch of moose, or, if he has been lucky,

122

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lucky,

The Finding of Tavish

of caribou. I had forgotten Tavish’s cache, or we
might have saved our meat.”

He ran a hand through his thick, greyish hair until
it stood up about his head like a brush.

David tried not to reveal his restlessness as they
waited. At each new sound he hoped that what he had
heard was Tavish’s footsteps. He had quite decidedly
planned his action. Tavish would enter, and, of course,
there would be greetings, and possibly half an hour or
more of smoking and talk before he brought up the
Firepan eek country, unless, as might fortuitously
happen, father Roland spoke of it ahead of him. After
that he would show Tavish the picture, and he would
stand well in the light so that it would be impressed
upon Tavish all at once. He noticed that the chimney
of the lamp was sooty and discoloured, and somewhat
to the missioner’s amusement he took it off and cleaned
it. The light was much more Satisfactory then. He
wandered about the cabin, scrutinising, as if out of
curiosity, Tavish’s belongings. There was not much
to discover. Close to the bunk there was a small, bat-
tered chest with riveted steel ribs. He wondered if it
were unlocked, and what it contained. As he stood
over it he could hear plainly the thud, thud, thud of the
thing outside—the haunch of meat—as though someone
was tapping fragments of the Morse code in a Careless
and broken sort of way. Then, without any particular
motive, he stepped into the dark corner at the end of the
bunk. An agonised squeak came from under his foot,
and he felt something small and soft flatten out, like a
wad of dough. He jumped back. An exclamation
broke from his lips. It was unpleasant, though the soft
thing was nothing more than a mouse.

I 123

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

“Confound it!” he said.

Father Roland was listening to the slow, pendulum-
like thud, thud, thud against the logs of the cabin. It
seemed to come more distinctly as David crushed out
the life of the mouse, as if pounding a protest upon the
wall.

“Tavish has hung his meat low,” Father Roland
said concernedly. “Quite careless of him, unless it is
a very large quarter.”

He began slowly to undress.

“We might as well turn in,” he suggested. “When
‘Tavish shows up the dogs will raise bedlam and wake
us. Throw out Tavish’s blankets and put your own in
his bunk. I prefer the floor. Always did. Nothing
like a good, smooth floor——”

He was interrupted by the opening of the cabin door.
The Cree thrust in his head and shoulders. He came
no farther. His eyes were afire with the smouldering
gleam of garnets. He spoke rapidly in his native tongue
to the missioner, gesturing with one lean, brown hand
as he talked. Father Roland’s face became heavy, fur-
rowed, perplexed. He broke in suddenly, in Cree, and
when he ceased speaking Mukoki withdrew slowly. The
last David saw of the Indian was his shifting, garnet-
like eyes, disappearing like beads of blackish flame.

“Pest!” cried the little missioner, shrugging his
shoulders in disgust. “The dogs are uneasy. Mukoki
says they smell death. They sit on their haunches, he
says, staring—staring at nothing, and whining like
puppies. He is going back with them to the other side
of the ridge. If it will ease his soul, let him go!”

“T have heard of dogs doing that,” said David.

“Of course they will do it,” shot back Father Roland

124

Bees

The Finding of Tavish

unhesitatingly. ‘Northern dogs always do it, and
especially mine. They are accustomed to death. Twenty
times in a winter, and sometimes more, I care for the
ucad. They always go with me, and they can smell
death in ‘ae wind. But here—why, it is absurd! There
is noth ng dead here—unless it is that mouse and
Qavish’s meat!” He shook himself, grumbling under
his breath at Mukoki’s folly. And then: “The dogs
have always acted queer when Tavish was near,” he
added in a lower voice. “I can’t explain why; they
simply do. Instinct, possibly. His presence makes
them uneasy. An unusual man, this Tavish. I wish
he would come. I am anxious for you to meet him.”
That his mind was quite easy on the score of Tavish’s
physical well-being he emphasised by falling asleep very
shortly after rolling himself up in his blankets on the
floor. During their three nights in camp David had
marvelled at and envied the ease with which Father
Roland could drop off into profound and satisfactory
Slumber, this being, as his new friend had explained to
him, the great and underlying virtue of a good stomach.
To-night, however, the missioner’s deep and regular
breathing as he lay on the floor was a matter of vexation
to him. He wanted him awake. He wanted him up
and alive, thoroughly alive, when Tavish came.
“Pounding his ear like a tenderfoot,” he thought,
“while I, a puppy in harness, couldn’t sleep at this

. hour if I wanted to.” Afterward he was to learn that

Sleep in the Northland was not always a necessity of
tired limbs and exhausted body. A gift of the gods, he
came in time to call it. To-night he was nervously
alert, especially when he no longer had Father Roland’s
company. He filled his pipe for the third or fourth

125

The Girl Beyond the Trail

time and sat down on the edge of the bunk, listening
for Tavish. He was certain, from all that had been
said, that Tavish would come. All he had to do was
wait. There had been growing in him, a bit uncon-
sciously at first, a feeling of animosity toward Tavish,
an emotion that burned in him with a gathering fierce-
ness as he sat alone in the dim light of the cabin, grind-
ing out in his mental restlessness visions of what Tavish
might have done. Conviction had never been stronger
in him. Tavish, if he had guessed correctly, was a
fiend. He would soon know. And if he was right, if
Tavish had done that—if up in those mountains

His eyes blazed and his hands were clenched as he
looked down at Father Roland. After a moment, with-
out taking his eyes from the missioner’s inanimate form,
he reached to the pocket of his coat which he had flung
on the bunk and drew out the picture of the girl. He
looked at her a long time, his heart growing warm, and
the tense lines softening in his face.

“Tt can’t be,” he whispered. “She is alive!”

As if the wind had heard him, and was answering,
there came more distinctly the sound close behind him.

Thud—thud—thud——

There was a silence, in which David closed his
fingers tightly about the picture. And then, more
insistently :

Thud! Thud! Thud!

He put the picture back into his pocket, and rose to
his feet. Mechanically he slipped on the coat. He went
to the door, opened it softly, and passed out into the
night. The moon was above him, like a great white
disc. The sky burned with stars. He could see now
to the foot of the ridge over which Mukoki had gone,

126

The Finding of Tavish

and the clearing about the cabin lay in a cold and
luminous glory. Tavish, if he had been caught in the
twilight darkness and had waited for the moon to rise,
would surely be showing up soon.

He walked to the side of the cabin and looked back.
Quite distinctly he could see Tavish’s meat, suspended
from a stout sapling that projected straight out from
under the edge of the roof. It hung there darkly, a
little in shadow, swinging gently in the wind that had
risen, and tap-tap-tapping against the logs. David
moved toward it, gazing at the edge of the forest, in
which he thought he had heard a sound that was like
the creak of a sledge-runner. He hoped it was Tavish
returning. For several moments he listened, with his
back to the cabin. Then he turned. He was very close
to the thing hanging from the sapling. It was swing-
ing slightly. The moon shone on it, and then— -
Great God! A face—a human face! A face bearded,
with bulging, staring eyes, gaping mouth—a grin of
agony frozen in it! And it was tapping, tapping,
tapping——

He staggered back with a dreadful cry. He swayed
to the door, groped blindly for the latch, stumbled in
clumsily, like a drunken man. The horror of that life-
less, grinning face was in his voice. He had wakened
the missioner. He was sitting up, staring at him.

“Tavish——” cried David chokingly; “Tavish—is
dead!” and he pointed to the end of the cabin where
they could hear again that tap-tap-tapping against the
log wall.

CHAPTER XII

NO PRAYER FOR TAViSH

Not until afterwards did David realise how terribly his
announcement of Tavish’s death must have struck into
the soul of Father Roland. For a few seconds the
missioner did not move. He was wide awake, he had
heard—and yet he looked at David dumbly, his two
hands gripping his blanket. When he did move it was
to turn his face slowly toward the end of the cabin
where the thing was hanging, with only the wall
between. Then, still slowly, he rose to his feet.

David thought he had only half understood.

“Tavish—is dead!” he repeated huskily, straining
to swallow the thickening in his throat. ‘He is out
there—hanging by his neck—dead!”

Dead! He emphasised that word, spoke it twice.
Father Roland still did not answer. He was getting
into his clothes mechanically, his face curiously ashen,
his eyes neither horrified nor startled, but with a
stunned lock in them. He did not speak when he went
to the door and out into the night. David followed,
and ir a moment they stood close to the thing that was
hanging where Tavish’s meat should have been. The
moon threw a vivid sort of spotlight on it. It was
grotesque and horrible—very bad to look at, and un-
forgettable. Tavish had not died easily. He seemed
to shriek that fact at them as he swung there dead; even
now he seemed more terrified than cold. His te th

128

No Prayer for Tavish

gleamed a little. That, perhaps, was the worst of it all.
And his hands were clenched tight. David noticed that.
Nothing seemed relaxed about him.

Not until he had looked at Tavisa for perhaps sixty
full seconds did Father Roland speak. He had re-
covered himself, judging from his voice. It was quiet
and unexcited. But in his first words, unemotional as
they were, there was a significance that was almost
frightening.

“At last—she made him do that!”

He was speaking to himself, looking straight into
Tavish’s agonised face. A great shudder swept through
David. She! He wanted to cry out. He wanted to
know. But the missioner now had his hands on the
gruesome thing in the moonlight, and he was saying:

“ There is still warmth in his body. He has not been
long dead. He hanged himself, I should say, not more
than half an hour before we reached the cabin. Give
me a hand, David!”

With a mighty effort David pulled himself together.
After all it was nothing more than a dead man hanging
there. But his hands were like ice as he seized hold of
it. A knife gleamed in the moonlight over Tavish’s
head as the missioner cut him down. They lowered
Tavish to the snow, and David went into the cabin for a
blanket. Father Roland wrapped the blanket carefully
about the body so that it would not freeze to the ground.
Then they entered the cabin. The missioner threw off
his coat and built up the fire. When he turned he
seemed to notice for the first time the deathly pallor in
David’s face.

“It shocked you—when you found it there,” he said.
“Ugh! I don’t wonder. But I—David, I didn’t tell

129

The Girl Beyond the Trail

you I was expecting something like this. I have feared
for Tavish. And to-night, when the dogs and Mukoki
signalled death I was alarmed, un il we found the fire
in the stove. It didn’t seem reasonable then. I thought
Tavish would return. The dogs were gone too. He
must have freed them just before he went out there.
Terrible. But justice—justice, I suppose. God some-
times works His ends in queer ways, doesn’t He?”

“What do you mean?” cried David, again fighting
that thickening in his throat. “Tell me, father! I must
know. Why did he kill himself?”

His hand was clutching at his breast, where the
picture lay. He wanted to tear it out, in this moment,
and demand of Father Roland if this was the face—the
girl’s face—that had haunted Tavish.

“TI mean that his fear drove him at last to kill him-
self,” said Father Roland in a slow, sure voice, as if
carefully weighing his words before speaking them. “I
believe, now, that he terribly wronged someone, and
that his conscience was his fear, and that it haunted
him by bringing up visions and voices until it drove him
finally to pay his debt. And up here Conscience is
mitoo aye chikoon—the Little Brother of God. That
is all I know. I wish Tavish had confided in me. I
might have saved him.”

“Or—punished,” breathed David.

“My business is not to punish. If he had come to
me, asking help for himself and mercy from his God, I
could not have betrayed him.”

He was putting on his coat again.

“T am going after Mukoki,” he said. ‘There is
work to be done, and we may as well get through with
it by moonlight. I don’t suppose you fecl like sleep ?”

130

No Prayer for Tavish

David shook his head. He was calmer now, quite
recovered from the first horror of his shock when the
door closed behind Father Roland. In the thoughts
that were swiftly ceadjusting themselves in his mind
there was no very great sympathy for the man who had
ha: zed himself. In place of that sympathy the oppres-
sion of a thing that was greater than disappointment
settled upon him heavily, driving from him his own per-
sonal dread of this night’s ghastly adventure, and add-
ing to his suspense of the past forty-eight hours a
hopelessness the poignancy of which was almost like
that of a physical pain. Tavish was dead, and in dying
he had taken with him the secret for which David would
have paid with all he was worth in this hour. In his
despair, as he stood there alone in the cabin, he mut-
tered something to himself. The desire possessed him
to cry out aloud that Tavish had cheated him; a strange
kind of rage burned in him, and he turned toward the
door, with clenched hands, as if about to rush out and
choke from the dead man’s throz what he wanted to
know and force his glazed and sta ing eyes to look for
just one instant on the face of the girl in the picture.
In another moment his brain had cleared itself of that
insane fire. After all, would Tavish kill himself with-
out leaving something behind? Would there not be
some kind of an explanation, written by Tavish before
he took the final step? A confession? A letter to
Father Roland? Tavish knew that the missioner would
stop at his cabin on his return into the North. Surely
he would not kill himself without leaving some word
for him; at least a brief accounting of his act!

He began looking about the cabin again, swiftly and
eagerly at first, for if Tavish had written anything he

131

The Girl Beyond the Trail

would beyond all doubt have placed the paper in some
conspicuous place; pinned it at the end of his bunk, for
instance, or on the wall, or against the door. They
might have overlooked it, or possibly it had fallen to
the floor. To make his search surer David lowered the
lamp from its bracket in the ceiling and «arried it in his
hand. He went into dark corners, scrutinised the floor
as well as the walls, and moved garments frou their
wooden pegs. There was nothing. Tavish had cheated
him again! His eyes rested finally on the chest. He
placed the lamp on a stool, and tried the lid. It was
not locked. As he lifted it he heard voices indistinctly
outside. Father Roland had returned with Mukoki.
He could hear them as they went tc where Tavish was
lying with his face turned up to the moon.

On his knees he began pawing over the stuff in the
chest. It was a third filled with odds and ends—Irttle
else but trash; tangled ends of babiche, a few rusted
tools, nails and bolts, a pair of half-worn shoe-packs, a
litter of things that was a disappointment to David.
The door opened behind him as he was rising to his
feet. He turned to face Mukoki and the missioner.

“There is ‘.othing,” he said, with a gesture that took
in the room. “He hasn’t left any word that I can
find.”

Father Roland had not closed the door.

“ Mukok: will help you search. Look in his clothing
on the wall. Tavish must surely have left something.”

He went out, shutting the door behind him. Fora
moment he listened to make sure that David was not
going to follow him. He hurried then to the body of
Tavish, and stripped off the blanket. The dead man
was terrible to look at, with his open, glassy eyes and

132

No Prayer for Tavish

his distorted face, and the moonlight gleaming on his
grinning teeth. The missioner shuddered.

“I can’t guess,” he whispered, as if speaking to
Tavish. “I can’t guess—quite—what made you do it,
Tavish. But you haven’t died without telling me. I
know it. It’s there—in your pocket.”

He listened again, and his lips moved. He bent
over him, on one knee, and averted his eyes as he
searched the pockets of Tavish’s heavy coat. Against
the dead man’s breast he found it, neatly folded, about
the size of foolscap paper—several pages of it, he
judged, by the thickness of the packet. It was tied
with fine threads of babiche, and in the moonlight he
could make out quite distinctly the words: “For Father
Roland, God’s Lake—Personal.” Tavish, after all, had
not made of himself the victim of sudden fright, of a
momentary madness. He had planned the affair in a
quite business-like way. Premeditated it with consider-
able precision, in fact, and yet in the ead he had died
with that stare of horror and madness in his face. Father
Roland spread the blanket over him again, after he had
placed the packet in his own coat. He knew where
Tavish’s pick and shovel were hanging at the back of
the cabin, and he brought these tools and placed them
beside the body. After that he rejoined David and the
Cree.

They were still searching, and finding nothing.

“T have been looking through his clothes—out there,”
said the missioner, with a shuddering gesture which
intimated that his task had been as fruitless as their own.
“We may as well bury him. A shallow grave, close to
where his bedy lies. I have placed a pick and shovel
on the spot.” He spoke to David: “Would you mind

133

The Girl Beyond the Trail

helping Mukoki to dig? I would like to be alone for a
little while. You understand. There are things——-”

“T understand, father.”

For the first time David felt something of the awe of
this thing that was death. He had forgotten, almost,
that Father Roland was a servant of God, so vitally
human had he found him, so unlike all other men he
had ever known of his calling. But it was impressed
upon him now, as he followed Mukoki. Father Roland
wanted to be alone. Perhaps to pray. To ask mercy
for Tavish’s soul. To plead for its guidance into the
Great Unknown. The thought quieted his own
emotions, and as he began to dig in the hard snow and
frozen earth he tried to think of Tavish as a man, and
not as a monster.

In the cabin Father Roland waited until he heard the
beat of the pick before he moved. Then he locked the
cabin door with a wooden bolt, and sat himself down
at the table, with the lamp close to his bent head and
Tavish’s confessions in his hands. He cut the babiche
threads with his knife, unfolded the sheets of paper, and
began to read, while Tavish’s mice nosed slyly out of
their murky corners, wondering at the new and sudden
stillness in the cabin, and, it may be, stirred into rest-
lessness by the absence of their master.

* * * * *

The ground under the snow was discouragingly
hard. To David the diggin of the grave seemed like
chipping out bits of flint from a solid block, and he soon
turned over the pick to Mukoki. Alternately they
worked for an hour, and each time that the Cree took
his place David wondered what was keeping the mis-

134

No Prayer for Tavish

sioner so long in the cabin. At last \{ukoki intimated
with a sweep of his hands and a hunch of his shoulders
that their work was done. The grave looked very
shallow to David, and he was about to protest against
his companion’s judgment when it occurred to him that
Mukoki had probably digged many holes such as this
in the earth, and had helped to fill them again, so it was
possible he knew his business. After all, why did
people weigh down one’s last slumber with six feet of
soil overhead when three or four would leave one nearer
to the sun, a :d make not quite so chill a bed? He was
thinking of this as he took a iast look at Tavish. Then
he heard the Indian give a sudden grunt, as if someone
had poked him unexpectedly in the pit of the stomach.
He whirled about, and stared.

Father Roland stood within ten feet of them, and at
sight of him an exciamation rose to David’s lips and
died there in an astonished gasp. He seemed to be
swaying, like a sick man, in the mocalight, and im-
pelled by the same thought, Mukoki and David moved
toward him. The missioner extended an arm, as if to
hold them back. His face was ghastly and terrible—
almost as terrible as Tavish’s, and he seemed to be
struggling with scmething in his throat before he could
speak. Then he said, in a strange, forced voice that
David had never heard come from his lips before :

“Bury him. There will be—no prayer.”

He turned away, moving slowly in the direction of
the forest. And as he went David noticed the heavy
ucag of his feet, and the unevenness of his trail in the
snow.

135

Hal

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|
|

——

CHAPTER XIII

“ HOME ”

For two or three minutes after Father Roland had dis-
appeared into the forest David and Mukoki stood
without moving. Amazed and a little stunned by the
change they had seen in the missioner’s ghastly face,
and perplexed by the strangeness of his voice and the
unsteadiness of his walk as he had gone away from
them, they looked expectantly for him to return out of
the shadows of the timber. His last words had come
to them with metallic hardness, and their effect, in a
way, had been rather appalling. “There will be—no
prayer.” Why? The question was in Mukoki’s
gleaming, narrow eyes as he faced the dark spruce, and
it was on David’s lips as he turned at last to look at
the Cree. There was to be no prayer for Tavish! David
felt himself shuddering, and suddenly, breaking their
silence like a sinister cackle, an exultant exclamation
burst from the Indian, as though all at once understand-
ing had dawned upon him. He pointed to the dead
man, his eyes widening.

“Tavish—he great devil,” he said. “Mon pére make
no prayer. Mey-oo!” and he grinned in triumph; for
had he not, during all these months, told ‘‘mon pére”
that Tavish was a devil, and that his cabin was filled
with little devils? ‘Mey-oo!” he cried again, louder
than before. “A devil! A devil!” And with a swift,
vengeful movement he sprang to Tavish, caught him

136

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by his moccasined feet, and to David's horror flung him
fiercely into the shallow grave. “A devil!” he croaked
again, and like a madman began throwing in the frozen
earth upon the body.

David turned away, sickened by the thud of the body
and the fall of the clods on its upturned face—for he had
caught a last unpleasant glimpse of the face, and it was
staring and grinning up at the stars. A feeling of
dread followed him into the cabin. He filled the stove,
and sat down to wait for Father Roland. It was a long
wait. He heard Mukoki when he went away. The
mi stled about him again. An hour had passed
wi. . .e heard a sound at the door—a scraping sound,
like the peculiar drag of claws over wood—and a
moment later it was followed by a whine that came to
him faintly. He opened the door slowly. Baree stood
just outside the threshold. He had given him two fish
at noon, so he knew that it was not hunger that had
brought the dog to the cabin. Some mysterious instinct
had told him that David was alone; he wanted to come
in; his yearning gleamed in his eyes as he stood there
stiff-legged in the moonlight. David held out a hand,
on the point of enticing him through the door, when
he heard the soft crunching of feet in the snow. A grey
shadow, swift as the wind, Baree disappeared. David
scarcely knew when he went. He was looking into the
face of Father Roland. He backed into the cabin, with-
out speaking, and the missioner entered. He was smil-
ing. He had to an extent recovered himself. He threw
off his mittens and rasped his hands in an effort at
cheerfulness over the fire. But there was something
forced in his manner, something that he was making a
terrific fight to keep under. He was like one who had

137

The Girl Beyond the Trail

been in great mental stress for many days instead of a
single hour. His eyes burned dully with the smoulder-
ing glow of a fever; his shoulders hung loosely, as
though he had lost the strength to hold them erect; he
shivered, David noticed, even as he rubbed his hands
and smiled.

“Curious how this has affected me, David,” he said
apologetically. ‘It is incredible, this weakness of mine.
I have seen death many scores of times, and yet I could
not go out and look on his face again. Incredible. Yet
itis so. Iam anxious to get away. Mukoki will soon
be coming with the dogs. A devil, Mukoki says.
Well, perhaps. A strange man at best. We must
forget this night. It has been an unpleasant introduc-
tion for you into our North. We must forget it. We
must forget Tavish.” And then, as if he had omitted
a fact of some importance, he added: “I will kneel at
his graveside before we go.”

“Tf he had only waited,” said David, scarcely know-
ing what words he was speaking; “if he had only waited
until to-morrow, or the next day——”’

“Yes, if he had waited!”

The missioner’s eyes narrowed. David heard the
click of his jaws as he dropped his head so that his face
was hidden.

“Tf he had waited,” he repeated, after David; “if he
had only waited!” And his hands, spread fan-like over
the stove, closed slowly and rigidly as if choking at the
throat of something.

“I have friends up in that country he came from,”
David forced himself to say, “and I hoped he would be
able to tell me something about them. He must have
known them, or heard of them.”

138

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“Home”

“Undoubtedly,” said the missioner, still looking at
the top of the stove, and unclenching his fingers as
slowly as he had drawn them together, “but he is
dead.”’

There was a note of finality in his voice, a sudden
forcefulness of meaning as he raised his head and looked
at David.

“Dead,” he repeated, “and buried. We are no
longer even privileged to guess at what he might have
said. As I told you once before, David, I am not a
Catholic, or a Church of England man, or of any re-
ligion that wears a name, and yet I have accepted a
little of them all into my own creed. A wandering
missioner—and I am such—must obliterate to an extent
his own deep-souled convictions and accept indulgently
all articles of Christian faith; and there is one law, above
all others, which he must hold inviolate. He must not
surmise over the past of the dead, or speak aloud the
secrets of the living. Let us forget Tavish.”

His words sounded a knell in David’s heart. If he
had hoped, at the very last, that Father Roland would
tell him something more about Tavish, that hope was
now gone. The missioner spoke in a voice that was
almost gentle, and he came to David and put a hand
on his shoulder as a father might have done with a son.
He had placed himself, in this moment, beyond the
reach of any questions that might have been in David's
mind. With eyes and touch that spoke a deep affection
he had raised a barrier between them as inviolate as that
law of his creed which he had mentioned almost in the
same breath. And with it had come a better under-
Standing.

David was glad that Mukoki’s voice and the commo-

J 139

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

tion of the dogs came to interrupt them. They gathered
up hurriedly the few things they had brought into the
cabin and carried them to the sledge. David did not
enter the cabin again, but stood with the dogs in the
edge of the timber, while Father Roland made his pro-
mised visit to the grave. Mukoki followed him, and as
the missioner stood over the dark mound in the snow
David saw the Cree slip like a shadow into the cabin,
where a light was still burning. Then he noticed
that Father Roland was kneeling, and a moment
later the Indian came out of the cabin quietly,
and without looking back joined him near the dogs.
They waited.

Over Tavish’s grave Father Roland’s lips were
moving, and out of his mouth strange words came in
a low and unemotional voice that was not much above
a whisper.

“___and I thank God that you did not tell me
before you died, Tavish,” he was saying. “I thank
God for that. For if you had—I would have killed
you!”

As he came back to them David noticed a flickering
of light in the cabin, as though the lamp was sputtering
and about to go out. They slipped on their snowshoes,
and with Mukoki breaking the trail buried themselves in
the moonlit forest.

Half an hour later they halted on the summit of a
second ridge. The Cree looked back and pointed with
an exultant cry. Where the cabin had been a red flare
of flame was rising above the treetops. David under-
stood what the flickering light in the cabin had meant.
Mukoki had spilled Tavish’s kerosene and had touched
a match to it so that the “little devils” might follow

140

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66 Home 99

their master into the Black Abyss. He almost
fancied he could hear the agonised squeakirg of
Tavish’s pets.

* * * * ®

Straight northward through the white moonlight of
that night Mukoki broke their trail, travelling at times
so swiftly that the missioner commanded him to slacken
his pace on David’s account. Even David did not think
of stopping. He had no desire to stop so long as their
way was lighted ahead of them. It seemed to him that
the world was becoming brighter and the forest gloom
less cheerless as they dropped that evil valley of
Tavish’s farther and farther behind them. Then the moon
began to fade, like a great lamp that had burned itself
out of oil, and darkness swept over them like huge
wings. It was two o’clock when they camped and
built a fire.

So, day after day, they continued into the North.
At the end of his tenth day—the sixth after leaving
Tavish’s—David felt that he wa: no longer a stranger
in the Country of the Big Snows. He did not say as
much to Fatuer Roland, for to express such a thought
to one who had lived there all his life seemed to him to
be little less than a bit of sheer imbecility. Ten days!
That was all, and yet they might have been ten months,
or as many years for that matter, so completely had
they changed him. He was not thinking of himself
physically—not a day passed that Father Roland did
not point out some fresh triumph for him there. His
limbs were nearly as tireless as the missioner’s; he knew
that he was growing heavier, and he could at last chop
through a tree without winding himself. These things

14!

The Girl Beyond the Trail

his companions could see. His appetite was voracious.
His eyes were keen and his hands steady, so that he
was doing splendid practice shooting with both rifle
and pistol, and each dav when the missioner insisted
on their bout with the gloves he found it more and more
difficult to hold himself in. ‘Not so hard, David,”
Father Roland frequently cautioned him, and in place
of that first joyous grin there was always a look of
settled anxiety in Mukoki’s face as he watched them.
The more David pummelled him the greater was the
little missioner’s triumph. “I told you what this North
Country would do for you,” was his exultant slogan;
“I told you!”

Once David was on the point of telling him that he
could see only the tenth part of what it had done for
him, but the old shame held his tongue. He did not
want to bring up the old story. The fact that it had
existed, and had written itself out in human passion,
remained with him still as a personal and humiliating
degradation. It was like a scar on his own body, a re-
pulsive sore which he wished to keep out of sight, even
from the eyes of the man who had been his salvation.
The growth of this revulsion in him had kept pace with
his physical improvement, and if at the end of these ten
days Father Roland had spoken of the woman who had
betrayea him—the woman who had been his wife—he
would have turned the key on that subject as decisively
as the missioner had banned further conversation or con-
jecture about Tavish. This was, perhaps, the best
evidence that he had cut out the cancer from his breast.
The “golden goddess,” whom he had thought an
angel, he saw now stripped of her glory. If she had
repented in that room, if she had betrayed fear even, a

142

66 Home 99

single emotion of mental agony, he would not have felt
so sure of himself. But she had laughed. She was,
like Tavish, a devil. He thought of her beauty now as
that of a poisonous flower. He had unwittingly touched
such a flower once, a flower of wonderful waxen loveli-
ness, and it had produced a pustulant eruption on his
hand. She was like that. Poisonous. Treacherous.
A creature with as little soul as that flower had perfume.
It was this change in him, in his conception and his
memory of her, that he would have given much to have
had Father Roland understand.

During this period of his own transformation he had
observed a curious change in Father Roland. At times,
after leaving Tavish’s cabin, the little missioner seemed
struggling under the weight of a deep and gloomy op-
pression. Once or twice, in the firelight, it had looked
almost like sickness, and David had seen his face grow
wan and old. Always after these fits of dejection there
would follow a reaction, and for hours the missioner
would be like one upon whom had fallen a new and
sudden happiness. As day added itself to day, and
night to night, the periods of depression became shorter
and less frequent, and at last Father Roland emerged
from them altogether, as though he had been fighting a
great fight, and had won. There was a new lustre in
his eyes. David wondered if it was a trick of his
imagination that made him think the lines in the mis-
sioner’s face were not so deep, and that he stood
Straighter, and that there was at times a deep and
vibrant ncte in his voice which he had not heard before.

During these days David was trying hard to make
himself believe that no reasonable combination of
circumstance could have associated Tavish with the girl

143

The Girl Beyond the Trail

whose picture he kept in the breast pocket of his coat.
He succeeded in a way. He tried also to disassociate
the face in the picture from a living personality. In
this he failed. More and more the picture became a
living thing for him. He found a great comfort in its
possession. He made up his mind that he would keep
it, and that its sweet face, always on the point of speak-
ing to him, should go with him wherever he went, guid-
ing him in a way, a companion. He found that in
hours when thé darkness and the emptiness of his life
oppressed him the face gave him new hope, and he saw
new light. He ceased to think of it as a picture, and
one night, speaking half aloud, he called her “Little
Sister.” She seemed nearer to him after that. Uncon-
sciously his hand had learned the habit of going to his
breast pocket when they were travelling, to make sure
that she was there. He would have suffered physical
torment before he would have confided all this to any
living soul, but the secret thought that was growing
more and more in his heart he told to Baree. The dog
came into their camps now, but not until the missioner
and Mukoki had gone to bed. He would cringe down
close at David’s feet, lying there motionless, oblivious
of the other dogs and showing no inclination to disturb
them. He was there on the tenth night, looking
steadily at David with his two bloodshot eyes, wonder-
ing what it was that his master held in his hands. From
the lips and eyes of the Girl, trembling and aglow in
the firelight, David looked at Baree. In the bloodshot
eyes he saw an immeasurable faith, slavedom. He
knew that Baree would never leave him. And the Girl,
looking at him as steadily as Baree, would never leave
him. There was a tremendous thrill in the thought.
144

“Home”

He leaned over the dog, and with a tremulous stir in
his voice he whispered :

“Some day, boy—we may go to her.”

Baree shivered with joy and understanding. David’s
voice, whispering to him in that way, was like a caress,
and he whined softly as he crept an inch or two nearer
to his master’s feet.

That night Father Roland was restless. Hours later,
when he was lying snug and warm in his own blankets,
David heard him get up, and watched him as he scraped
the burned embers of the fire together and added fresh
fuel to them. The flap of the tent was back a little, so
that he could see plainly. It could not have been later
than midnight. The missioner was fully dressed, and
as the fire burned brighter David could see the ruddy
glow of his face, and it struck him that it looked singu-
‘arly boyish in the flame-glow. He did not guess what
was keeping the missioner awake until a little later he
heard him among the dogs, and his voice came to him,
low and exultingly, and as boyish as his face had
seemed—“ We'll be home to-morrow, boys—home!”
That word, home, sounded oddly enough to David up
here three hundred miles from civilisation. He fancied
that he heard the dogs shuffling in the snow, and the
rasping satisfaction of their master’s hands.

Father Roland did not return into the tent again that
night. David fell asleep, but was roused for breakfast
at three o’clock, and they were away before it was yet
light. Through the morning darkness Mukoki led the
way as unerringly as a fox, for he was now on his own
ground. As dawn came, with a promise of sun, David
wondered in a whimsical sort of way if his companions,
both dogs and men, were going mad. He had not as

145

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

yet experienced the joy and excitement of a northern
home-coming, and neither had he dreamed that it was
possible for Mukoki’s leathern face to break into wild
jubilation. He began, all at once, as the first of the
sun shot over the forests, in a low, chanting voice that
grew steadily louder, and as he sang he kept time in a
curious way with his hands. He did not slacken his
pace, but kept steadily on, and suddenly the little mis.
sioner joined him in a voice that rang out like the blare
of a bugle. To David’s ears there was something
fomiliar in that song as it rose wildly on the morning
air.

“Pa sho ke non ze koon,

Ta ba nin ga,

Ah no go suh nuh guk,
Na quash kuh mon;

Na guh mo yah nin koo,

Pa sho ke non ze koon,

Pa sho ke non ze koon,
4 ba nin ga.”

“What is it?” he asked, when Father Roland
dropped back to his side, smiling and breathing deeply.
“It sounds like a Chinese puzzle, and yet——”

The missioner laughed. Mukoki had ended a
second verse.

“Twenty years ago, when I first knew Mukoki, he
would chant nothing but Indian legends to the beat of
a tom-tom,” he explained. “Since I’ve had him he has
developed a passion for ‘ mission singing ’—for hymns.
That was ‘ Nearer, my God, to Thee.’ ”

Mukoki, gathering wind, had begun again.

146

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66 Home 99

“That’s his favourite,” explained Father Roland.
“At times, when he is alone, he will chant it by the hour.
He is delighted when I join in with him. It’s ‘ From
Greenland’s Icy Mountains.’ ”

“Ke wa de noong a yah jig,

Kuh ya ’gewh wah bun oong,

E gewh an duh nuh ke jig,
E we de ke shah tag,

Kuh ya puh duh ke soo waud
Palm e nuh sah wunszh eeg,

Ke nun doo me goo nah nig
Che shuh wa ne mung wah.”

At first David had felt a slight desire to laugh at the
Cree’s odd chanting and the grotesque movement of his
hands and arms, like two pump-handles in slow and
rhythmic action, as he kept time. This desire did not
come to him again during the day. He remembered,
long years ago, hearing his mother sig those old
hymns in his boyhood home, and he could see the
ancient melodeon with its yeliow keys, and the ragged
hymn-book his mother prized next to her Bible, and he
could hear again her sweet, quavering voice singing
those gentle songs, like unforgettable benedictions—the
Same songs that Mukoki and the missioner were chant-
ing now, up here, a thousand miles away. That was a
long time ago, a very, very long time ago. She had
been dead many years. And he—he must be growing
old. Thirty-eight! And he was nine then, with spare
legs and tousled hair, and a worship for his mother
that had mellowed, and perhaps saddened, his whole
life. It was a long time ago. But the songs had lived.

147

MuethiaaGlis i usdeeieie ta Las ot

The Girl Beyond the Trail

They must have spread over the whole world—his
mother’s sorgs, and he began to join in where he could
catch the tunes, and his voice sounded strange and
broken and unreal to him, for it was a long time since
those boyhood days, and he had not sung since then—
with his mother.

° * * ® °

It was growing dusk when they came to the mis-
sioner’s home on God’s Lake. It was almost a chateau,
David thought when he first saw it, built of massive logs.
Beyond it there was a smaller building, also built of
logs, and toward this Mukoki hurried with the dogs and
sledge. He heard the welcoming cries of Mukoki’s
family and the excited barking of dogs as he followed
Father Roland into the big cabin. It was lighted, and
warm. Evidently someone had been keeping it in readi-
ness for the missioner’s return. They entered into a
big room, and in his first glance David saw three doors
leading from this room; two of them were open, the
third was closed. ‘There was something very like a
sobbing note in Father Rol«nd’s voice as he opened his
arms wide, and said to D...'d:

“Home, David—your : ume!”

He took off his things—his coat, his cap, his moc-
casins and his thick German socks, and when he spoke
to David again, and looked at him again, his eyes had
in them a mysterious light and his words trembled with
a suppressed emotion.

“You will forgive me, David—you will forgive me
a weakness, and make yourself at home—while I go
alone for a few minutes into—that—room ?”

He rose from the chair on which he had seated him-
self to strip off his moccasins and faced the closed door.

148

“ Home”

He seemed to forget David after he had spoken. He
went to it slowly, his breath coming quickly, and when
he reached it he drew a heavy key from his pocket. He
unlocked the door. It was dark inside, and David could
see nothing as the missioner entered. For many
minutes he sat where Father Roland had left him, star-
ing at the door. “A strange man—a very strange
man!” Thoreau had said. Yes, a strange man!
What was in that room? Why its unaccountable
silence? Once he thought he heard a low cry. For ten
minutes he sat, waiting. And then, very faintly at
first, almost like a wind soughing through distant tree-
tops, and coming nearer, nearer and more distinct, there
came to him from beyond the closed door the gently
subdued music of a violin.

setiaieen Mh a ee Lee

Aa 0G TRL oO ART bere Ure we

CHAPTER XIV

FATHER ROLAND'S SECRET

'N the days and weeks that followed, this room beyond
tne clos°d door and what it contained became more and
more (o David the great mystery in Father Roland’s
‘fe. It impressed itself upon him slowly but resolutely
as the key to some tremendous event in his life, some
vast secret which he was keeping from all other human
knowledge, unless, perhaps, Mukoki was its silen:
Sharer. At times David believed this was so, and
especially after that day when, carefully and slowly,
and in good English, as though the missioner had
trained him in what he was to say, the Cree said to him :

“No one ever goes into that room, m’sieu. And no
man has ever seen mon pére’s violin.”

The words were spoken in a low monotone without
emphasis or emotion, and David was convinced they
were a message from the missioner, something Father
Roland wanted him to know without speaking the words
himself. Not again after that firs: night did he apolo-
gise for his visits to the room, and never did he explain
why the door was always locked, or why he invariably
locked it after him when he went in. Each night, when
they were at home, he disappeared into the room, open-
ing the door only enough to let his body pass through ;
and sometimes he remained there for only a few minutes,
and occasionally for a long time. And at least once a
day, usually in the evening, he played the violin. It

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Father Roland’s Secret

was always the same piece that he played. There was
never a variation, and David could not make up his
mind that he had ever heard it before. At these times,
if Mukoki happened to be in “The Chateau,” as Father
Roland called his place, he would sit like one in a
trance, scarcely breathing until the music had ceased.
And when the missioner came from the room his face
was always lit up in a kind of halo. There was one ex-
ception to all this, David noticed. The door was never
unlocked when there was a visitor at The Chateau. No
other but himself and Mukoki heard the sound of the
violin, and this fact, in time, impressed David with the
deep faith and affection of the little missioner. One
evening Father Roland came from the room with his
face aglow with some strange happiness that had come
to him in there, and placing his hands on David's
Shoulders, he said, with a yearning and ) ot hopeless
inflection in his voice :

“I wish you would stay with me always, David. It
has made me younger, and happ er, to have a son.”

In David there was growing—but concealed from
Father Roland’s eyes for a long t'.e—a Strange and
insistent restlessness. It ran in his lood, like a thing
alive, whenever he looked at ie fa > of the Girl. He
wanted to go on.

And yet life at The C\Ateau, after the first couple of
weeks, was anything br: dull and unexciting. The
Chateau lay in the h-art of the great trapping country.
Forty miles to the rorih was a Hudson’s Bay post,
where an ordain‘ minister of the Church of England
had a mission. But Father Roland belonged to the
forest people alone. They were his “children,” scat-
tered in their shacks and tepees over ten thousand

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53
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The Girl Beyond the Trail

square miles of country, with The Chateau as its centre.
He was ceaselessly on the move after that first fort-
night, and David was always with him. The Indians
worshipped him, and the quarter-breeds and half-breeds
and occasional French called him “mon pére” in very
much the same tone of voice as they said “Our Father”
in their prayers. These people of the trap-lines were
a revelation to David. They were wild, living in a
savage primitiveness, and yet they reverenced a divinity
with a conviction that amazed him. And they died.
That was the tragedy of it. They died—too easily. He
understood, after a while, why a country ten times as
large as the State of Ohio had altogether a population
of less than twenty-five thousand, a fair-sized town.
Their belts were drawn too tight—men, women, and
little children—their belts were too tight. That was it!
Father Roland emphasised it. Too much hunger in
the long, terrible months of winter, when to keep body
and soul together they trapped the furred creatures for
the hordes of beautiful barbarians in the great cities of
the earth. Just a steady, gnawing hunger all through
the winter—hunger for something besides meat, a
hunger that got into the bones, into the eyes, into arms
and legs, a hunger that brought sickness, and then death.
That winter David saw grown men and women die
of measles as easily as flies that had devoured poison.
They were over at Metoosin’s, sixty miles to the west of
The Chateau, when Metoosin returned to his shack with
supplies from a post. Metoosin had taken up lynx
and marten and mink that would sell next year in
London and Paris for a thousand dollars, and he had
brought back a few very small cans of vegetables at
fifty cents a can, a little flour at forty cents a pound, a
152

Father Roland’s Secret

bit of cheap cloth at the price of rare silk, some
tobacco and a pittance of tea, and he was happy. A
half season’s work on the trap-line, and his family
could have eaten the fruits of it all in a week—if they
had lived right.

“And still they’re always in the debt of the posts,”
the missioner said, the lines settling deeply in his face.

And yet David could not but feel more and more
deeply the thrill, the fascination, and, in spite of its
hardship, the recompense of this life of which he had
become a part. For the first time in his life he came
in contact with the primal measurements of riches, of
contentment, and of ambition, and with these he saw
stripped naked to his eyes many other things which
he had not understood, or in blindness had failed
to see, in the life from which he had come.
Metoosin, with that little treasure of food from the post,
did not know that he was poor, or that through many
long years he had been slowly starving. He was rich!
He was a great trapper! And his Cree wife, with her
long sleek braid and her great dark eyes, was tre-
mendously proud of her lord, that he should bring
home for her and the children such a wealth of things—

4 a little flour, a few cans of things, a few yards of cloth,
4 and a little bright ribbon. David choked when he ate
* with them that night. But they were happy! That,
* after all, was the reward of things, even though people
+ died slowly of something which they could not under-
| stand. And there were many Metoosins, and many
3 I-owas, in that domain of Father Roland’s who prayed
> for nothing more than enough to eat, clothes to cover

them, and the unbroken love of their firesides. And
David thought of them, as the weeks passed, as the
153

SOB papas |

The Girl Beyond the Trail

} most terribly enslaved of all the slaves of civilisation—
| slaves of civilised women; for they had gone on like
this for centuries, and would go on for other genera-
tions, giving into the hands of the Great Company their
life’s blood which, in the end, could be accounted for
by a yearly dole of food which, under stress, did not

quite serve to keep body and soul together.
It was after a comprehension of these things that
David understood Father Roland’s great work. In
that kingdom of his, running approximately fifty miles
in each direction from The Chateau—except to the north-
ward, where the post lay—there were two hundred and
forty-seven men, women and children. Ina great book
the little missioner had their names, their ages, the
blood that was in them, and where they lived; and by
: them he was worshipped as no man that ever lived in
7 that vast country of cities and towns below the Height
‘ti8 of Land. At every tepee and shack they visited there
was some token of love awaiting Father Roland; a rare
skin here, a pair of moccasins there, a pair of snowshoes
that it had taken an Indian woman’s hands weeks to
make, choice cuts of meat, but mostly—as they travelled
along—the thickly-furred skins of animals; and never
did they go to a place that the missioner did not leave
something in return, usually some article of clothing so
thick and warm that no Indian was rich enough to buy
it for himself at the post. Twice each winter Father
Roland sent down to Thoreau a great sledge-load of
these contributions of his people, and Thoreau, selling
them, sent back a still greater sledge-load of supplies
that found their way in this manner of exchange into

the shacks and tepees of the forest people.
“If I were only rich——” said Father Roland one
154

Ae Beara es ee juinie;
ee eter tii, [hoe teen :

Father Roland’s Secret

night at The Chateau, when it wasstorming dismally out-
side. “But I have nothing, David. Icandoonlya tenth
of what I wouldliketodo. There are only eighty families
in this country of mine, and I have figured that a
hundred dollars a family, spent down there and not at
the post, would keep them all in comfort through the
longest and hardest winter. A hundred dollars, in
Winnipeg, would buy as much as an Indian trapper
can get at the post for a thousand dollars’ worth of fur,
and five hundred dollars is a good catch. It is terrible,
but what can I do? I dare not buy their furs, and sell
them for my people, because the Company would black-
list the whole lot and it would be great calamity in the
end. But if I had morey, if I could do it with my
own——”

David had been thinking of that. In the late
January snow two teams went down to Thoreau in
place of one. Mukoki had charge of them, and with
him went an even half of what David had brought with
him—fifteen hundred dollars in gold certificates.

“If I live I’m going to make them a Christmas pre-
sent of twice that amount each year,” he said. ‘I can
afford it. I fancy that I shall take a great pleasure in
it, and that occasionally I shall return into this country
to make you a visit.”

It was the first time that he had spoken as though
he would not remain with “‘mon pére ” indefinitely. But
the conviction that the time was not far away when he
would be leaving him had been growing in him steadily.
He kept it to himself. He fought against it even. But
it grew. And, curiously enough, it was strongest when
Father Roland was in the locked room playing softly
on the violin. David never mentioned the room. He

K 155

sos ipa SAR db |. ee

The Girl Beyond the Trail

feigned an indifference to its very existence. And yet
in spite of himself the mystery of it became an obsession
with him. Something within it seemed to reach out
insistently and invite him in, like a spirit chain :d there
by the missioner himself, crying for freedom. One
night they had come back to The Chateau through a
blizzard from the cabin of a half-breed whose wife was
sick, and after their supper the missioner went into the
mystery-room. He played the violin as usual. But
after that there was a long silence. When Father
Roland came out, and seated himself opposite David at
the small table on which their books were scattered,
David received a shock. Clinging to the missioner’s
shoulder, shimmering like a polished silken thread in
the lamp-glow, was a long shining hair—a woman’s
hair. With an effort David choked back the word of
amazement in his throat, and began turning over the
pages of a book. And then, suddenly, the missioner
saw that silken thread. David heard his quick breath.
He saw, without raising his eyes, the slow, almost
Stealthy movement of his companion’s fingers as he
plucked the hair from his arm and shoulder, and when
David looked up the hair was gone, and one of Father
Roland’s hands was closed tightly, so tightly that the
veins stood out on it. He rose from the table, and again
went into the room beyond the locked door. David’s
heart was beating like an unsteady hammer. He could
not quite account for the strange effect this incident had
upon him. He wanted more than ever to see in that
room beyond the locked door.

February of this year in the Northland was a month
of great storm—the Hunger Moon, which meant sick-
ness, and a great deal of travel for Father Roland. He

156

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Father Roland’s Secret

and David were almost ceaselessly on the move, and its
hardships gave the finishing touches to David’s educa-
tion. The wilderness, vast and empty as it was, no
longer held a dread for him. He had faced its bitterest
storms; he had slept with the deep snow under his
blankets; he had followed behind the missioner through
the blackest nights, when it had seemed as though no
human soul could find its way; and he had looked on
death. Once they ran swiftly to it through a night
blizzard ; again it came, three in a family, so far to the
west that it was out of Father Roland’s beaten trails;
and again he saw it in the Madonna-like face of a young
French girl, who had died clutching a cross to her
breast. It was this girl’s white face, sweet as a child’s
and strangely beautiful in death, that stirred David most
deeply. She must have been about the age of the girl
he carried next his heart.

Soon after this, early in March, he had definitely
made up his mind. There was no reason now why he
should not go on. He was physically fit. Three months
had hardened him until he was like a rock. He be-
lieved that he had more than regained his weight. He
could beat Father Roland with either rifle or pistol,
and in one day he had travelled forty mi!-s on snow-
shoes. That was when they had arrived ust in time
to save the life of Jean Croisset’s little girl, who lived
away over on the Big Thunder. The crazed father had

For the forest peo
of Father Rolan

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

growing love for him, their gladness when he came,
their sorrow when he left, and it gave him what he
thought of as a sort of filling satisfaction, something he
had never quite fully experienced before in all his life.
He knew that he would come back to them again some
day, that, in the course of his life, he would spend a
great deal of time among them. He assured Father
Roland of this.

The missioner did not question him deeply about his
“friends” in the western mountains. But night after
night he helped him to mark out a trail on the maps that
he had at The Chateau, giving him a great deal of infor-
mation which David wrote down in a book, and letters
to certain good friends of his whom he would find along
the way. As the slush-snows came, and the time when
David would be leaving drew nearer, Father Roland
could not entirely conceal his depression, and he spent
more time in the room beyond the locked door. Several
times when about to enter the room he seemed to hesi-
tate, as if there was something which he wanted to say
to David. Twice David thought he was almost on the
point of inviting him into the room, and at last he came
to believe that the missioner wanted him to know what
was beyond that mysterious door, and yet was afraid to
tell him, or ask him in. It was well along in March
that the thing happened which he had been expecting.
Only it came in a manner that amazed him deeply.
Father Roland came from the room early in the evening,
after playing his violin. He locked the door, and as he
put on his cap he said:

“T shall be gone for an hour, David. I am going
over to Mukoki’s cabin.”

He did not ask David to accompany him, and as he
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Father Roland’s Secret

turned to go the key that he had held in his hand
dropped to the floor. It fell with a quite audible sound.
The missioner must have heard it, and would have re-
covered it had it slipped from his fingers accidentally.
But he paid no attention to it. He went out quickly,
without glancing back.

For several minutes David stared at the key without
moving from his chair near the table. It meant but one
thing. He was invited to go into that room—alone.
If he had had a doubt it was dispelled by the fact that
Father Roland had left a light burning in there. It
was not chance. There was a purpose to it all—the
light, the audible dropping of the heavy key, the swift
going of the missioner. David made himself sure of
this before he rose from his chair. He waited perhaps
five minutes. Then he picked up the key.

At the door, as the key clicked in the lock, he hesi-
tated. The thought came to him that if he was making
a mistake it would be a terrible mistake. It held his
hand for a moment. Then, slowly, he pushed the door
inward and followed it until he stood inside. The first
thing that he noticed was a big brass lamp, of the old
style brought over from England by the Company a
hundred years ago, on a table in the centre of the room.
Then he looked about, holding his breath in anticipation
of something tremendous impending. At first he saw
nothing that impressed him forcibly. The room was a
disappointment in that first glance. He could see
nothing of its mystery, nothing of that strangeness,
quite indefinable even to himself, which he had expected.
And then, as he stood there Staring about with wide-
open eyes, the truth flashed upon him with a suddenness
that drew a quick breath from his lips. He was stand-

The Girl Beyond the Trail

ing in a woman’s room! There was no doubt. It
looked very much as though a woman had left it only
recently. There was a bed, fresh and clean, with a
white counterpane. She had left on that bed a—night-
gown; yes, and he noticed that it had a frill of lace at
the neck. On the wall were her garments, quite a
number of them, and a long coat of a curious style, with
a great fur collar. There was a small dressing-table,
oddly antique, and on it a brush and comb, a big red
pincushion, and odds and ends of a woman’s toilet
affairs. Close to the bed were a pair of shoes and a pair
of slippers, with unusually high heels, and hanging
over the edge of the counterpane was a pair of woman’s
long stockings. The walls of the room were touched
up, as if by a woman’s hands, with pictures and a few
ornaments. Where the garments were hanging David
noticed a pair of woman’s snowshoes and a woman’s
moccasins under a picture of the Madonna. On a
mantel there was a tall vase filled with the dried stems
of flowers. And then came the most amazing discovery
of all. There was a second table between the lamp and
the bed, and it was set fortwo. Yes, fortwo! No, for
three! For a little in shadow David made out a crudely
made high chair, a baby’s chair, and on it was a
little knife and fork and baby-spoon, and a little tin
plate. It was astounding. Perfectly incredible. And
David’s eyes sought questingly for a door through
which a woman might come and go mysteriously and
unseen. There was none, and :'= one window of the
room was so high up that a person standing on the
ground outside could not look in.

And now it began to dawn upon David that all these
things he was looking at were old—very old. In The

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Chateau the missioner no longer ate on tin plates.
The shoes and slippers must have been made last
generation. The rag carpet under his feet had lost its
vivid lines of colouring. Age impressed itself upon him.
This was a woman’s room, but the woman had not been
here recently. And the child had not been here recently.

For the first time his eyes turned in a closer inspec-
tion of the table on which stood the big brass lamp.
Father Roland’s violin lay beside it. He made a step
or two nearer, so that he could see beyond the lamp,
and his heart gave a sudden jump. Shimmering on
the faded red cloth of the table, glowing as brightly
as though it had been clipped from a woman’s head but
yesterday, was a long, thick tress of hair! It was dark,
richly dark, and his second impression was one of
amazement at the length of it. The tress was as long as
the table—fully a yard down the woman’s back it must
have hung. It was tied at the end with a bit of white
ribbon.

David drew slowly back toward the door, stirred
all at once by a great doubt. Had Father Roland meant
that he should look upon all this? A lump rose sud-
denly in his throat. He had made a mistake. A great
mistake. He felt now like one who had broken into
the sanctity of a sacred place. He had committed a
sacrilege. The missioner had not dropped the key
purposely. It must have been an accident. And he—
David—was guilty of a great blunder. He withdrew
from the room and locked the door. He dropped the
key where he had found it on the floor, and sat down
again with his book. He did not read. He scarcely
saw the lines of the printed page. He had not been in
his chair more than ten minutes when he heard quick

161

The Girl Beyond the Trail

footsteps, a hand at the door, and Father Roland came
in. He was visibly excited, and his glance shot at once
to the room from which David had just come. Then
his eyes scanned the floor. The key was gleaming
where it had fallen, and with an exclamation of relief
the missioner snatched it up.

“I thought I had lost my key,” he laughed, a bit
nervously; then he added, with a deep breath: “It’s
snowing to-night. A heavy snow, and there will be
good sledging for a few days. God knows I don’t want
you to leave me, but if it must be—we should take
advantage of this snow. It will be the last. Mukoki
and I will go with you as far as the Reindeer Lake
country, two hundred miles north and west. David—
must you go?”

It seemed to David that two tiny fists were pounding
against his breast, where the picture lay.

“Yes, I must go,” he said. “I have quite made up
my mind to that. I must go.”

162

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CHAPTER XV
THE MOUNTAINS!

TEN days after that night when he had gone into the
mystery-room at The Chateau, David and Father Roland
clasped hands in a final farewell at White Porcupine
House, on the Cochrane River, two hundred and
seventy miles from God’s Lake. It was Something more
than a handshake. The missioner made no effort to
Speak in these last moments. His team was ready for
the return drive, and he had drawn his travelling hood
close about his face. In his own heart he believed that
David would never return. He would go back to
Civilisation, Probably next autumn, and in time he
would forget. As he had said, on their last day before
reaching the Cochrane, David’s going was like taking
a part of his heart away. He blinked now, as he
dropped David’s hand—blinked and turned his eyes.
And David’s voice had an odd break in it. He knew
what the missioner was thinking.

“Til come back, mon pére,” he called after him, as
Father Roland broke away and went toward Mukoki
and the dogs. “I'll come back next year!”

Father Roland did not look back until they were
started. Then he turned and waved a mittened hand.
Mukoki heard the sob in his throat. David tried to call
a last word to hin, but his voice choked. He, too,
waved a hand. He had not known that there. were
friendships like this between men, and as the missioner

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

trailed steadily away from him, growing smaller and
smaller against the dark rim of the distant forest, he felt
a sudden fear and a great loneliness—a fear that, in
spite of himself, they would not meet again, and a
loneliness that comes to a man when he sees a world
widening between himself and the one friend he has
on earth. His one friend. The man who had saved
him from himself, who had pointed out the way for
him, who had made him fight. More than a friend—a
father. He did not stop the broken sound that came to
his lips. A low whine answered it, and he looked down
at Baree, huddled in the snow within a yard of his feet.
‘My God and Master,” Baree’s eyes said, as they looked
up at him, “I am here.” It was as if David had heard
the words. He held out a hand and Baree came to him,
his great wolfish body a-quiver with joy. After all, he
was not alone.

A distance from him the Indian who was to take
him over to Fond du Lac, on Lake Athabasca, was wait-
ing with his dogs and sledge. He was a Sarcee, one of
the last of an almost extinct tribe, so old that his hair
was of a shaggy white, and so thin that he looked like
a famine-stricken Hindu. ‘He has lived so long that
no one knows his age,” Father Roland had said, “and
he is the best trailer between Hudson’s Bay and the
Peace.” His name was Upso-Gee, the Snow Fox, and
the missioner had bargained with him for a hundred
dollars to take David from White Porcupine House to
Fond du Lac, three hundred miles farther north and
west. And he was ready. He cracked his long caribou-
gut whip to remind David of that. David had said
good-bye to the factor and the clerk at the Company
Store, and there was no longer an excuse to detain him.

164

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The Mountains !

They struck out across a small lake. Five minutes later
he looked back. Father Roland, not much more than a
speck on the white plain now, was about to disappear in
the forest. It seemed to David that he had stopped,
and again he waved his hand, though human eyes could
not have seen the movement over that distance.

Not until that night, when David sat alone beside
his camp fire, did he begin to realise fully the vastness
of this adventure into which he had plunged himself.
The Snow Fox was dead asleep, and it was horribly
lonely. It was a dark night, too, with that shivering
wailing of a restless wind in the tree-tops; the sort of a
night that makes !oneliness grow until it is like some
kind of a monster inside, choking off one’s breath. And
on Upso-Gee’s tepee, with the firelight dancing on it,
there was painted in red a grotesque fiend with horns—
a medicine man, or ‘‘ devil-chaser’’; and this devil-
chaser grinned in a bloodthirsty manner at David as he
sat near the fire, as if gloating over some dreadful fate
that awaited him. It was lonely. Even Barce -cemed
to sense his master’s oppression, for he !2:°' nis nead
between David’s feet, and was as still as if asleep. A
long way off David heard the howling of a wolf, and it
reminded him shiveringly of the lead-dog’s howl that
night before Tavish’s cabin. It was like the death-cry
that comes from a dog’s throat; and where the forest
gloom mingled with the firelight he saw a phantom
shadow—in the morning he found that it was a spruce
bough broken and hanging down—that made him think
again of Tavish, swinging in the moonlight. His
thoughts bore upor him, deeply and with foreboding.
And he asked himself questions—questions which were
not new, but which came to him to-night with a new and

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

deeper significance. He believed that Father Roland
would have gasped in amazement and that he would
have held up his hands in incredulity had he known the
truth of this astonishing adventure of his. An astonish-
ing adventure, nothing less. To find a girl. A girl
he had never seen, and who might be in another part
of the world when he got to the end of his journey—or
married. And if he found her, what would he say?
What would he do? Why did he want to find her?
“God alone knows,” he said aloud, borne down under
his gloom, and went to bed.

Small things, as Father Roland frequently said,
decide great events. The next morning came with a
glorious sun; the world again was white and wonderful,
and David found swift answers for the questions he
had asked himself a few hours before. Each day there-
after the sun was warmer, and with its increasing pro-
mise of the final “break up” and slush snows Upso-
Gee’s taciturnity and anxiety grew apace. He was
little more talkative than the painted devil-chaser on
the blackened canvas of his tepee, but he gave David
to understand that he would have a hard time getting
back with his dogs and sledge from Fond du Lac if the
thaw caine earlier than he had anticipated. David mar-
velled at the old warrior’s endurance, and especially
when they crossed the forty miles of ice on Wollaston
Lake between dawn and darkness. At high noon the
snow was beginning to soften on the sunny slopes even
then, and by the time they reached the Porcupine the
Snow Fox was chanting his despairing prayer nightly
before that grinning thing on his tepee. “Swas-tao [the
thaw] she kam dam’ queek,” he said to David, grimacing
his old face to express other things which he could not

166

The Mountains !

sayin English. And it did. Four days later, when they
reached Fond du Lac, there was water underfoot in
places, and Upso-Gee turned back on the home trail
within an hour.

This was in April, and the post reminded David of
a great hive to which the forest people were swarming
like treasure-laden bees. On the last snow they were
coming in with their furs from a hundred trap-lines.
Luck was with David. On this first day Baree fought
with a huge malemute and almost killed it, and David,
in separating the dogs, was slightly bitten by the male-
mute. A friendship sprang up instantly between the
two masters. Bouvais was a Frenchman from Horse-
shoe Bay, fifty miles from Fort Chippewyan, and a
hundred and fifty straight west of Fond du Lac. He
was a fox-hunter. “I bring my furs over here, m’sieu,”
he explained, “because I had a fight with the factor at
Fort Chippewyan and broke out two of his teeth.”
Which was sufficient explanation. He was delighted
when he learned that David wanted to go west. They
started two days later with a sledge heavily laden with
supplies. The runners sank deep in the growing slush,
but under them was always the thick ice of Lake Atha-
basca, and gcing was not bad, except that David’s feet
were always wet. He was surprised that he did not
take a “cold.” “A cold—what is that?” asked Bouvais,
who had lived along the Barrens all his life. David
described a typical case of sniffles, with running at eyes
and nose, and Bouvais laughed. “The only cold we
have up here is when the lungs get touched by frost,”
he said, “and then you die—the following spring.
Always then. The lungs slough away.” And then he
asked: “Why are you going west ?”

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

David found himself face to face with the question,
and had to answer. “Just to toughen up a bit,” he re-
plied. ‘Wandering. Nothing else to do.” And after
all, he thought later, wasn’t that pretty near the truth?
He tried to convince himself that it was. But his hand
touched the picture of the girl in his breast pocket. He
seemed to feel her throbbing against it. A preposterous
imagination! But it was pleasing. It warmed his
blood.

For a week David and Baree remained at Horseshoe
Bay with the Frenchman. Then they went on around
the end of the lake towards Fort Chippewyan. Bouvais
accompanied them, out of friendship purely, ard they
travelled afoot with fifty-pound packs on their shoulders,
for in the big sunlit reaches the ground was already
growing bare of snow. Bouvais turned back when they
were ten miles from Fort Chippewyan, explaining that
it was a nasty matter to have knocked two teeth down
a factor’s throat, and particularly down the throat of the
head factor of the Chippewyan and Athabasca district.
“And they went down,” assured Bouvais. “He tried
to spit them out, and couldn’t.” A few hours later
David met the factor, and observed that Bouvais had
spoken the truth; at least there were two teeth missing
quite conspicuously. Hatchett was his name. He
looked it; tall, thin, sinewy, with bird-like eyes that
were shifting this way and that at all times, as though
he was constantly on the alert for an ambush, or feared
thieves. He was suspicious of David, coming in alone
in this No Man’s Land with a pack on his back ; a white
man, too, which made it all the more suspicious. Per-
haps a possible Free Trader looking for a location. Or,
worse still, a spy of the Company’s hated competitors,

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The Mountains!

the Reveillon Brothers. It took some time for Father
Roland’s letter to convince him that David was harm-
less. And then, all at once, he warmed up like birch
bark taking fire, and shook David’s hand three times in
five minutes, he was so hungry for a white man’s com-
panionship—an honest white man’s, mind you, and not
a scoundreliy competitor’s! He opened four cans of
lobster left over from Christmas for their first meal, and
that night beat David seven games of cribbage in a row.
He wasn’t married, he said; didn’t even have an Indian
woman. Hated women. If it wasn’t for breeding a
future generation of trappers he wouldn’t care if they all
died. No good. Positively no good. Always making
trouble more or less. That’s why, a long time ago, there
was a fort at Chippewyan—a sort of blockhouse that
still stood there. Two men, in two different tribes,
wanted same woman; quarrelled; fought; one got his
blamed head busted; tribes took it up; raised hell for a
time—all over that rag of a woman. Terrible creatures,
women were. He emphasised his belief in short, biting
snatches of words, as though afraid of wearing out his
breath or his vocabulary, or both. Maybe his teeth had
something to do with it. Where the two were missing
he carried the stem of his pipe, and when he talked the
stem clicked like a castanet.

David had come at a propitious moment—a most
“propichus moment,” Hatchett told him. He had done
splendidly that winter. His bargains with the Indians
had been sharp and exceedingly profitable for the Com-
pany, and as soon as he had got his furs off to Fort
McMurray on their way to Edmonton he was going on
a long journey of inspection, which was his reward for
duty well performed. His fur barges were ready. All

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

they were waiting for was the breaking up of the ice,
when the barges would start up the Athabasca, which
meant south; while he, in his big war-canoe, would head
up the Peace, which meant west. He was going as far
as Hudson’s Hope, and this was within two hundred
and fifty miles of where David wanted to go. He
proved that fact by digging up an old Company map.
David’s heart beat an excited tattoo. This was more
than he had expected. Almost too good to be true.
“You can work your way up there with me,” declared
Hatchett, clicking his pipe-stem. ‘“Won’t cost you a
cent. Not a dam’ cent. Work. Eat. Smoke. Fine
trip. Just for company. A man needs company once
in a while—decent company. Ice will go by middle of
May. Two weeks. Meanwhile have a devil of a time
playing cribbage.”

They did. Cribbage was Hatchett’s one passion,
unless another was beating the Indians. ‘“ Rascally
devils,” he would say, driving his cribbage pegs home.
“Always trying to put off poor fur on you for good.
Deserve to be beat. And I beat ’em. Dam.-if-I-
don’t!”

“How did you lose your teeth ?” David asked him at
last. They were playing late one night.

Hatchett sat up in his chair as if stung. His eyes
bulged as he looked at David, and his pipe-stem clicked
fiercely.

“Frenchman,” he said. ‘Dirty pig of a Frenchman.
No use for ’em. None. Told him women were no
good—all women were bad. Said he had a woman.
Said I didn’t care—all bad just the same. Said the
woman he referred to was his wife. Told him he was
a fool to have a wife. No warning—the pig! He

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The Mountains!

biffed me. Knocked those two teeth out—down. I'll
get him some day. Flay him. Make dog-whips of his
dirty hide. All Frenchmen ought to die. Hope to
God they will. Starve. Freeze.”

In spite of himself David laughed. Hatchett took
no offence, but the grimness of his long, sombre
countenance remained unbroken. A day or two later
he discovered Hatchett in the act of giving an old
white-haired, half-blind cripple of an Indian a bag of
supplies. Hatchett sliook himself, as if caught in an
act of crime.

“I’m going to kill that old Dog Rib soon as the
ground’s soft enough to dig a grave,” he declared,
shaking a fist fiercely after the old Indian. “Beggar.
A sneak. No good. Ought to die. Giving him just
enough to keep him alive until the ground is soft.”

After all, Hatchett’s face belied his heart. His
tongue was like a cleaver. It ripped things up
generally; was terrible in its threatening, but harmless,
and tremendously amusing to David. He liked
Hatchett. His cadaverous countenance, never breaking
into a smile, was the oddest mask he had ever seen a
human being wear. He believed that if it once broke
into a laugh it would not straighten back again without
leaving a permanent crack. And yet he liked the man,
and the days passed swiftly.

It was the niddle of May before ihey started up the
Peace, three days after the fur barges had gone down
the Athabasca. David had never seen anything like
Hatchett’s big war-canoe, roomy as a small ship, and
light as a feather on the water. Four powerful Dog
Ribs went with them, making six paddles in all.
When it came to a question of Baree, Hatchett put

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

down his foot with emphasis. “What! Make a dam’
passenger of a dog? Never. Let him follow ashore—
or die.”

This would undoubtedly have been Baree’s choice
if he had had a voice in the matter. Day after day he
followed the canoe, swimming streams and working his
way through swamp and forest. It was no easy matter.
In the deep, slow waters of the Lower Peace the canoe
made thirty-five miles a day; twice it made forty. But
Hatchett kept Baree weil fed, and each night the dog
slept at David’s feet in camp. On the sixth day they
reached Fort Vermillion, and Hatchett announced him-
self like a king. For he was on Inspection. Company
Inspection, mind you. Important. A week later they
arrived at Peace River Landing, two hundred miles
farther west, and on the twentieth day came to Fort St.
John, fifty miles from Hudson’s Hope. From here
David saw his first of the mountains. He made out
their snowy peaks clearly, seventy miles away, and with
his finger on a certain spot on Hatchett’s map his
heart thrilled. He was almost there! Each day the
mountains grew nearer. From Hudson’s Hope he
fancied that he could almost see the dark blankets of
timber on their sides. Hatchett grunted. They were
still forty miles away. And MacVeigh, the factor at
Hudson’s Hope, looked at David in a curious sort of
way when David told him where he was going.

“You’re the first white man to do it,” he said, an
inflection of doubt in his voice. ‘It’s not bad going up
the Finley, as far as the Kwadocha. But from
there——”

He shook his head. He was short and thick, and
his jowl hung heavy with disapproval.

The Mountains!

“You're still seventy miles from the Stickine when
you end up at the Kwadocha,” he went on, thumbing
the map. “Who tke devil will you get to take you on
from there? Straight over the backbone of the Rockies.
No trails. Not even a post there. Too rough a
country. Even the Indians won’t live in it.’ He was
silent for a moment, as if reflecting deeply. “Old
Towaskook and his tribe are on the Kwadocha,” he
added, as if seeing a glimmer of hope. “He might.
But I doubt it. They’re a lazy lot of mongrels,
Towaskook’s people—who carve things out of wood to
worship. Still, he might. I’ll send up a good man with
you to influence him, and you’d better take along a
couple hundred dollars in supplies as a further induce-
ment,”

The man was a half-breed. Three days later they
left Hudson’s Hope, with Baree riding amidships. The
mountains loomed up swiftly after this, and the second
day they were among them. After that it was slow
work fighting their way up against the current of the
Finley. It was tremendous work. It seemed to David
that half their time was spent amid the roar of rapids.
Twenty-seven times in five days they made portages.
Later on it took them two days to carry their canoes
and supplies around a mountain. Fifteen days were
Spent in making eighty miles. Easier travel followed
then. It was the twentieth of June when they made
their last camp before reaching the Kwadocha. The
sun was still up; but they were tired, utterly exhausted.
David looked at his map and at the figures in the note-
book he carried. He had come close to fifteen hundred
miles since that day he and Father Roland and Mukoki
had set out for the Cochrane. Fifteen hundred miles!

173

The Girl Beyond the Trail

And he had less than a hundred more to go! Just
over those mountains—somewhere beyond them. It
looked easy. He would not be afraid to go on alone, if
old Towaskook refused to he!p him. Yes, alone. He
would find his way, somehow, he and Baree. He had
tremendous confidence in Baree. Together they could
fight it out. Within a week or two they would find the
girl.

And then-——

He looked at the picture a long time in the glow of
the setting sun.

CHAPTER XVI
“ THIS IS MY BEAR”

IT was the week of the Big Festival when David and his
half-breed arrived at Towaskook’s village. Towaskook
was the “‘farthest east” of the totem-worshippers, and
each of his forty or fifty people reminded David of the
devil-chaser on the canvas of the Snow Fox’s tepee.
They were dressed up, as he remarked to the half-breed,
“like fiends.” Towaskook himself was disguised in a
huge bear head from which protruded a pair of buffalo
horns that had somehow drifted up here from the
western piairies, and it was his special incumbency to
perform various antics about his totem-pole for at least
six hours between sunrise and sunset, chanting all the
time most dolorous supplications to the Squat monster
who sat grinning at the top of it. he Festival had
reached its fourth kesikow—or day—when David came.
It was “the day of good hunting,” and Towaskook and
his people worked themselves into exhaustion in the
ardour of their prayers that the game of the mountains
might walk right up to their tepee doors to be killed,
thus necessitating the smallest possible physica! exertion
in its capture. That night Towaskook visiicd David
at his camp a little up the river to see what he could
get out of the white man. He was monstrously fat—
fat from laziness; and David wondered how he had
managed to put in his hours of labour under the totem-
175

The Girl Beyond the Trail

pole. David sat in silence, trying to make out some-
thing from their gestures, as his half-breed Jacques and
the old chief talked.

Jacques repeated it all to him after Towaskook had
risen from his squat position, sighing deeply, and had
left them. It was a terrible journey over those moun-
tains, Towaskook had said. He had been on the
Stickine once. He had split with his tribe, and had
Started eastward with twice that many followers, but a
half of them had died—died because they would not
leave their precious totems behind, and so had been
caught in a deep snow that came early. It was a ten
days’ journey over the mountains. You went up above
the clouds—many times you had to go above the clouds.
He would never make the journey again. There was
one chance—just one. He had a young bear-hunter,
Kio. His face was still smooth. He had not won his
spurs, so to speak, and he was anxious to perform a
great feat, especially as he was in love with his medicine-
man’s daughter Kwak-wa-Pisew, The Butterfly. Kio
might go, to prove his valiancy to The Butterfly.
Towaskook had gone for him. Of course, on a mission
of this kind, Kio would accept no pay. That would
go to Towaskook. The two hundred dollars’ worth of
supplies satisfied him.

A little later Towaskook returned with Kio. Kio
was exceedingly youthful, slim built as a weasel, but
with a deep-set and treacherous eye. He listened. He
would go. He would go as .ar as the confluence of the
Pitman and the Stickine, if Towaskook would assure
him The Butterfy. Towaskook, eyeing greedily the
supplies which Jacques had laid out alluringly, nodded
an agreement to that. ‘The next day,” Kio said then,

176

— *

“This is my Bear”

eager now for the adventure. “The next day they
would start.”

That night Jacques carefully made up the two
shoulder-packs which David and Kio were to carry, for
thereafter their travel would be entirely afoot. David's
burden, with his rifle, was fifty pounds. Jacques saw
them off, shouting a last warning for David to “keep
a watch on that devil-eyed Kio.”

Kio was not like his eyes. He turned out, very
shortly, to be a communicable and rather likeable young
fellow. He was ignorant of the white man’s talk. But
he was a master of gesticulation ; and when, in climbing
their first mountain, David discovered muscles in his
legs and back that he had never known of before Kio
laughingly sympathised with him and assured him in
vivid pantomime that he would soon get used to it.
Their first night they camped almost at the summit of
the mountain. Kio wanted to make the warmth of the
valley beyond, but those new muscles in David's legs
and back declared otnerwise. Strawberries were ripen-
ing in the deeper valleys, but up where they were it was
cold. A bitter wind came off the snow on the peaks,
and David could smell the pungent fog of the clouds.
They were so high that the scrub-twigs of their fire
smouldered with scarcely sufficient heat to fry their
bacon. David was oblivious of discomfort. His blood
ran warm with hope and anticipation. He was almost
at the end of his journey. It had been a great fight,
and he had won. There was no doubt in his mind now.
After this he could face the world again.

Day after day they made their way westward. It
was tremendous, this journey over the backbone of the
mountains. It gave one a different conception of the

177

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

v-stness of things, and of the pygmy insignificance of
men. They were like ants on these mountains, David
thought—insignificant, crawling ants. Here was where
one might find a soul and a religion if he had never had
one before. One’s littleness was appalling. At times
it was almost frightening. It made one think, im-
pressed upon one that life was not much more than an
accident in this vast scale of creation, and that there was
great necessity fora God. In Kio’s eyes, as he some-
times looked down into the valleys, there was this
thing; the thought which perhaps he couldn’t analyse,
the great truth which he couldn’t understand, but felt.
It made a worshipper of him—a devout worshipper of
the totem. And it occurred to David that the spirit
of God must be in that totem even as much as in
finger-worn rosaries and the ivory crosses on women’s
breasts.

Early on the eleventh day they came to the confluence
of the Pitman and the Stickine Rivers, and a little later
Kio turned back on his homeward journey, and David
and Baree were alone. This aloneness fell upon them
like a thing that had a pulse and was alive. They had
crossed the Divide, and were in a great sunlit country
of amazing beauty and grandeur, with wide valleys be-
tween the mountains. It was July. From up and
down the valley, from the breaks between the peaks and
from the little gullies cleft in shale and rock that crept
up to the snow-lines, came a soft and droning murmur.
It was the music of running water. That music was
always in the air, for the rivers, the creeks and the tiny
streams gushing down from the snow that lay eternally
up near the clouds, were never still. There were sweet

perfumes as well as music in the air. The earth was
178

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“This is my Bear”

bursting with green; the early flowers were turning the
sunny slopes into coloured splashes of red and white
and purple; splashes of violets, of forget-me-nots, and
wild asters and hyacinths. David looked upon it all,
and his soul drank in its wonders. He made his camp,
and he remained in it all that day and the next. He was
eager to go on, and yet in his eagerness he hesitated
and waited. It seemed to him that he must become
acquainted with this empty world before venturing
farther into it—alone; that it was necessary for him to
understand it a little, and get his bearings. He could
not lose himself. Jacques had assured him of that,
and Kio had pantomimed it, pointing many times at
the broad, shallow stream that ran ahead of him. All
he had to do was to follow the river. In time, many
weeks of course, it would bring him to the white settle-
ment on the ocean. Long before that he would strike
Firepan Creek. Kio had never been that far; he had
never been farther than this junction of the two streams,
Towaskook had informed Jacques. So it was not fear
that held David. It was the aloneness. He was
taking a long mental breath. And meanwhile he
was repairing his boots, and doctoring Baree’s feet,
bruised and sore by their travel over the shale of the
mountain tops.

He thought that he had experienced the depths of
loneliness after leaving the missioner. But here it was a
much larger thing. This first night, as he sat under the
stars and a great white moon, with Baree at his feet, it
engulfed him; not ina depressing way, but awesomely.
It was not an unpleasant loneliness, and yet he felt that
it had no depths, no measurement. It was as vast as
the mountains that shut him in. Somewhere, miles to

179

te ot eee A yh) Oa ng RS tng ct gt eb Mees Seminar ees: eamect eae ce ocmrnaits 28 nome

—

The Girl Beyond the Trail

the east of him now, was Kio. That wasall. He knew
that he would never be able to describe it, this loneliness
—or aloneness; one man and a dog, with a world to
themselves. After a little, as he looked up at the stars
and listened to the droning sound of the waters ii the
valley, it began to thrill him with a new kind of in-
telligence. Here was peace as vast as space itself. It
was not troubled by the struggling existence of men and
women, and it seemed to him that he must remain very
still under the watchfulness of those billions of sentinels
in the sky, with the white moon floating slowly under
them. The second night he made himself and Baree a
small fire. The third morning he shouldered his pack
and went on.

Baree kept close at his master’s side, and the eyes of
the two were constantly on the alert. They were in a
splendid game country, and David watched for the first
opportunity that would give Baree and himself fresh
meat. The white sand-bars and gravelly shores of the
stream were covered with the tracks of the wild dwellers
of the valley and the adjoining ranges, and Baree sniffed
hungrily whenever he came to the warm scent of last
night’s spoor. He was hungry. He had been hungry
all the way over the mountains. Three times that day
David saw caribou at a distance. In the afternoon he
saw a grizzly on a green slope. Toward evening he
ran into luck. A band of sheep had come down from
a mountain to drink, and he came upon them suddenly,
the wind in his favour. He killed a young ram. For
a full minute after firing the shot he stood in his tracks,
scarcely breathing. The report of his rifle was like an
explosion. It leaped from mountain to mountain, echo-
ing, deepening, coming back to him in murmuring

180

—

| “This is my Bex: °

. knew intonations, and dying out at last in a sighing gasp. It
sliness was a weird and disturbing sound. He fancied, at first,
rid to that it could be heard many miles away. Then he went
> stars to the sheep, and that night the two feasted on fresh
iit the meat.

of ine | It was their fifth day in the valley when they came
f. It I to a break in the western wall of the range, and through
n and this break flowed a stream that was very much like the
n very Stickine, broad and shallow and ribboned with shifting
1tinels bars of sand. David made up his mind that it must
under be the Firepan, and he could feel his pulse quicken as
aree a he set up it with Baree. He must be quite near to
; pack Tavish’s cabin, if it had not been destroyed. Even if

it had been burned on account of the plague that had

yes of infested it he would surely discover the charred ruins
e ina of it. It was three o’clock when he started up the
e first creek, and he was—inwardly—tremendously agitated.
fresh He grew more and more positive that he was close to the
of the end of his adventure. He would soon come upon life—
vellers human life. And then? He tried to dispel the unsteadi-
sniffed ness of his emotions, the swiftly growing discomfort of
of last a great anxiety. The first, of course, would be Tavish’s
ungry cabin, or the ruins of it. He had taken it for granted
at day that Tavish would be here, near the confluence of the
isn he two streams. A hunter or prospector would naturally
ng he choose that location. And not far beyond where Tavish
- from had lived. ...
denly, He travelled slowly, questing both sides of the

For stream, and listening. He expected at any moment to
hear a sound, a new kind of sound. And he also

racks

= ve scrutinised closely the clean, white bars of sand. There
alias were footprints in them of the wild things. Once his
uring heart gave a sudden jump when he saw a bear-track that

181

The Girl Beyond the Trail

looked very much like a moccasin track. It was a won-
derful bear country. Their signs were everywhere
along the stream, and their number and freshness made
Baree restless. David travelled until dark. He had the
desire to go on even then. He built a small fire in-
stead, and cooked his supper. For a long time after that
he sat in the moonlight smoking his pipe, and still
listening. He tried not to think. The next day would
settle his doubts—Tavish, the girl, what he would find.
He went to’ 2ep late and awoke with the summer dawn.

The stream grew narrower and the country wilder
as he progressed. It was nuon when Baree stopped
dead in his tracks, stiff-legged, the bristles of his spine
erect, a low and ominous growl in his throat. He was
standing over a patch of white sand no larger than a
blanket.

“What is it, boy ?” asked David.

He went to him casually, and stood for a moment at
the edge of the sand without looking down, lighting
his pipe.

“What is it?”

The next moment his heart seemed rising up into
his throat. He had been expecting what his eyes looked
upon now, and he had been watching for it, but he had
not anticipated such a tremendous shock. The imprint
of a moccasined foot in the sand! There was no doubt
of it this tire. A human foot had made it—one, two,
three, four, five times in crossing that patch of sand!
He stood with the pipe in his moutl., staring down, ap-
parently without power to move or breathe. It was a
small footprint. Like a boy's. He noticed then,
with slowly shifting eyes, that Baree was bristling and
growling over another track. A bear track, huge,

182

issn cnnneen:

“This is my Bear”

deeply impressed in the sand. The beast’s great spoor
crossed the outer edge of the sand, following the direc-
tion of the moccasin tracks. It was thrillingly fresh,
if Baree’s bristling spine and rumbling voice meat
anything.

David’s eyes followed the direction of the two trails.
\ hunured yards up-stream he could see where gravel
and rock were replaced entirely by sand, quite a wide,
unbroken sweep of it, across which those ciawed and
moccasined feet must have travelled if they had followed
the creek. He was not interested in the bear, and
Baree was not interested in the Indian boy, so when
they came to the sand one followed the moccasin tracks
and the other the claw tracks. They were not at any
time more t..... ten feet apart. And then, all at once,
they came together, and David saw that the bear had
crossed the sand last and that his huge paws had
obliterated a part of the moccasin trail. This did not
strike him as unusually significant until he came to a
point where the n sccasins turned sharply and circled to
the right. The bear followed. A little farther on the
moccasins swung back to the left. The bear still fol-
lowed—and David’s heart gave a sudden thump! At
F . might have been coincidenc2, a bit of chance.
It was chance no longer. It was deliberate. The claws
were on the trail of the moccasins. David halted and
pocketed his pipe, on which he had not drawn a breath
in several minutes. He looked at his rifle, making sure
that it was ready for action. Baree was growling. His
white fangs gleamed and lurid lights were in his eyes
as he gazed ahead and sniffed. David shuddered.
Without doubt the claws had overtaken the moccasins
by this time.

183

The Girl Beyond the Trail

It was a grizzly. He guessed that much by the size
of the spoor. He followed it across a bar of gravel.
Then they turned a twist in the creek and came to other
sand. A cry of amazement burst from David's lips
when he looked closely at the two trails again.

The moccasins were now following the grizzly!

He stared, for a few moments disbelieving his eyes.
Here, too, there was no room for doubt. The feet of the
Indian boy had trod in the tracks of the bear. The
evidence was conclusive; the fact astonishing. Of
course, it was barely possible——

Whatever the thought might have been that was in
David’s mind it never reached a conclusion. He did
not cry out at what he saw after that. He made no
sound. Perhaps he did not even breathe. But it was
there—under his eyes; inexplicable, amazing, not to be
easily believed. A third time the order of the mys-
terious footprints in the sand was changed—and the
grizzly was now following the boy, obliterating almost
entirely the indentures in the sand of his small,

moccasined feet. He wondere.! s possible that his
eyes had gone bad on him, o: 's mind had slipped
out of its normal groove at. ' cticking him with

weirdly absurd hallucinations. So wh:t happened in
almost that same breath did not startle him as it might
otherwise have done. It was for a brief moment simply
another assurance of his insanity, and if the mountains
had suddenly turned over and balanced themselves on
their peaks their gymnastics would not have frozen him
into a more speechless stupidity than the girl who rose
before him just then, not twenty paces away. She had
appeared like an apparition from behind a great boulder
—a little older, a little taller, a bit wilder than she had
184

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“This is my Bear”

seemed to him in the picture, but with that same glorious
hair sweeping about her, and that same questioning
look in her eyes as she stared at him. Her hands were
in that same way at her side, too, as if she was on the
point of running away from him. He tried to speak.
He believed, afterward, that he even made an effort to
hold out his arms. But he was powerless. And so they
stood there, twenty paces apart, staring as if they had
met from the ends of the earth. Something happened
then to whip David’s reason back into its place. He
heard a crunching, heavy, slow. From around
the other end of the boulder came a huge bear. A
monster. Ten feet from the girl. The first cry rushed
out of his throat. It was a warning, and in the same
instant he flung his rifle to his shoulder. The girl was
quicker than he—like an arrow, a flash, a whirlwind of
burnished tresses as she flew to the side of the great
beast. She stood with her back against it, her two
hands clutching its _/ny hair, her slim body quivering,
her eyes flashing at L vid. He felt weak. He lowered
his rifle and advanced a few steps.

“'Who—what——” he managed to say, and stopped.
He was powerless to go on. But she seemed to under-
stand. Her body stiffened.

“I am Marge O’Doone,” she said defiantly. “And
this is my bear!”

185

CHAPTER XVII

DAVID EXPLAINS

SHE was splendid as she stood there, an exquisite human
touch in the savageness of the world about her—and yet
strangely wild as she faced David, protecting with her
own quivering body the great beast behind her. To
David, in the first immensity of his astonishment, she
had seemed to be a woman; but now she looked to him
like a child, a very young girl. Perhaps it was the way
her hair fell in a tangled riot of curling tresses over her
shoulders and breast; the slimness of her; the shortness
of her skirt, the unfaltering clearness of the great blue
eyes that were staring at him, and, above all else, the
manner in which she had spoken her name. The bear
might have been nothing more than a rock to him now,
against whi she was leanir, He did not hear
Baree’s low growling. He had tr..-iled a long way to
find her, and now that she stood there before him in
flesh and blood he was not interested in much else. It
was rather a difficult situation. He had known her so
long, she had been with him so constantly, filling even
his dreams, that it was difficult for him to find words
in which to begin speech. When they did come they
were most commonplace; his voice was quiet, with an
assured and protecting note in it.

“My name is David Raine,” he said. “I have -ome
a great distance to find you.”

It was a simple and unemotional statement of fact,

186

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David Explains

with nothing that was alarming in it, and yet the girl
shrank closer against her bear. The huge brute was
Standing without the movement of a muscle, his small,
reddish eyes fixed on David.

“T won’t go back!” she said. “Pil—fight |”

Her voicé was clear, direct, defiant. Her hands
appeared from behind her, and her little fists were
clenched. With a swift movement she tossed her hair
back from about her face. Her eyes were blue, but
dark as thunder-clouds in their gathering fierceness.
She was like a child, and yet a woman. A ferocious
little person. Ready to fight. Ready to spring at him
if he approached. Her eyes never left his face.

“I won’t go back!” she repeated. “I won’t!”

He was noticing other things about her. Her
moccasins were in tatters. Her short skirt was torn.
Her shining hair was in tangles. As she swept it back
from her face he saw under her eyes the darkness of
exhaustion; in her cheeks a wanness, which he did not
know just then was caused by hunger, and by her
tremendous struggle to get away from someting. On
the back of one of her clenched hanc's was a deep, red
scratch. The look in his face must iave given the <igl
some inkling of the truth. She leaned a little for ard,
quickly and eagerly, and demanded :

“Didn’t you come from The Nest? Didn’: ey
send you—after me?”

She pointed down the narrow valiey, her ‘ips ;
as she waited for his answer, her hair rioting over
breast again as she bent toward him.

“T’ve come fifteen hundred miles—from that dire
tion,” assured David, Swinging an arm at the backwarc

mountains. “I’ve never been in this country before.

M 187

The Girl Beyond the Trail

I don’ know where The Nest is, or what it is. And
I’m not going to take you back to it unless you want
to go. If someone is coming after you, and you’re
bound to fight, I’ll help you. Will that bear bite?”

He swung off his pack and put down his gun. For
a moment the girl stared at him with widening eyes.
The fear went out of them slowly. Her hands un-
clenched, and suddenly she turned to the big grizzly
and clasped her half bared arms about the shaggy
monster’s neck.

“Tara, Tara, it isn’t one of them! ” she cried. “It
isn’t one of them—and we thought it was! ”

She whirled on David with a suddenness that took
his breath away. [t was like the swift turning of a bird.
He had never seen a movement so quick.

“Who are you?” she flung at him, as if she had not
already heard his name. “Why are you here? What
business have you going up there—to The Nest?”

“I don’t like that bear,” said David dubiously, as
the grizzly made a slow movement toward him.

“Tara won’t hurt you,” she said. “Not unless you
put your hands on me and I scream. I’ve had him ever
since he was a baby, and he has never hurt anyone yet.
But—he will!” Her eyes glowed darkly again, and
her voice had a strange, hard little note in it. “I’ve
been—training him,” she added. “Tell me, why are
you going to The Nest?”

It was a point-blank, determined question, with still
a hint of suspicion in it; and her eyes, as she asked it,
were the clearest, steadiest, bluest eyes he had ever
looked into.

He was finding it hard to live up to what he had
expected of himself. Many times he had thought of

188

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David Explains

what he would sey when he found this girl, if he ever
did find her; but he had anticipated - sm.ething a little
more conventional, and had believed tha: i: would be
quite the easiest matter in the world to tell who ine was,
and why he had come, and to tell it all convincingly and
ur dJerstandingly. He had not, in short, expected the
“tt of little person who stood there a,cinst her bear;
. very difficult little pe. 1 to ®pproach easily and with
assurance—half woms: «:.a half child, and beautifully
wild. She was not G:sappointing. She was tremen-
dously appealing. When he surveyed her in a par-
ticularising way, as he did swiftly, there was an
exquisiteness about her that gave him pleasurable
thrills. But it was all wild. Even her hair, an amazing
glory of tangled curls, was wild in its disorder; she
seemed palpitating with that wildness, like a fawn that
had been run into a corner—no, not a fawn, but some
beautiful creature that could and would fight desper-
ateiy if need be. That was his impression. He was
underg ‘ng a smashing of his concept. .ns of this girl
as he lL. . visioned jner from the Picture, and a readjust-
nent o1 ner as she existed for him now. And he was
tot disappointed. He had never seen anything quite
lie this Marge O’Doone and her bear. O’Doone!
His mind had harked back quickly at her mention of
that name to the woman in the coach of the Trans-
continental, the woman who was seeking a man by the
name of Michael O’Doone. Of course the woman was
her mother. Her name, too, must have been O’Doone.
Very slowly the girl detached herself from her bear,
and came until she stood within three Steps of David.
“Tara won’t hurt you,” she assured im again, “un-

less I scream. He will tear you to pieces then.”

189

The Girl Beyond the Trail

If she had betrayed a sudden fear at his first appear-
ance it was gone now. Her eyes were like dark rock-
violets, and again he thought them the bluest and most
fearless eyes he had ever seen. She was less a child
now, standing that close to him; her slimness made her
appear taller than she was. David knew that she was
going to question him, and before she could speak he
asked :

“Why are you afraid of someone coming after you
from The Nest, as you call it?”

“Because,” she replied with quiet fearlessness, “I
am running away from it.”

“Running away!’’ he gasped. “How long——”

“Two days.”

He understood now—her ragged moccasins, her
frayed skirt, her tangled hair, the look of exhaustion
about her. It came upon him all at once that she was
standing unsteadily, swaying slightly like the slender
stem of a flower stirred by a breath of air, and that he
had not noticed these things because of the steadiness
and clearness of her wonderful eyes. He was at her side
in an instant. He forgot the bear. His hand seized
hers—the one with the deep, red scratch on it—and drew
her to a flat rock a few steps away. She followed him,
keeping her eyes on him in a wondering sort of way.
The grizzly’s reddish eyes were on David. A few
yards away Baree was lying flat on his belly between
two stones, his eyes on the bear. It was a Strange
scene, and rather weirdly incongruous. David no longer
sensed it. He still held the girl’s hand as he seated her
on the rock, and he looked into her eyes, smiling con-
fidently. She was, after all, his little chum—the girl
who had been with him ever since that first night’s

190

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David Explains

vision in Thoreau’s cabin, and who had helped him to
win that great fight he had made; the girl who had
cheered and inspired him during many months, and
whom he had come fifteen hundred miles to see. He
told her this. At first she possibly thought him a
little mad. Her eyes betrayed that suspicion, for she
uttered not a word to break in on his story; but after a
little her lips parted, her breath came a little quicker,
a flush grew in her cheeks. It was a wonderful thing
in her life, this story, no matter if the man was a bit
mad, or a huge impostor. He at least was very real
in this moment, and he told the story without excite-
ment, and with an immeasurable degree of confidence
and quiet tenderness—as though he was simplifying the
Strange tale for the ears of a child, which in fact he
was endeavouring to do; for with the flush in her
cheeks, her parted lips, and her softening eyes she
looked more like a child to him now than ever. His
manner gave her great faith. But of course she was,
deep in her trembling soul, quite incredulous that he
should have done all these things for her—incredulous
until he ended his story with that day’s travel up the
valley, and then, for the first time, showed to her as a
proof of all he had said—the picture.

She gave a little cry then. It was the first sound that
had broken past her lips, and she clutched the picture
in her hands and stared at it; and David, looking down,
could see nothing but that shining disarray of curls, a
tich and wonderful brown in the sunlight, clustering
about her shoulders and falling thickly to her waist.
He thought it indescribably beautiful, in spite of the
manner in which the curls and tresses had tangled
themselves. They hid her face as she bent over the

IgI

The Girl Beyond the Trail

picture. He did not speak. He waited, knowing that
in a moment or two all that he had guessed at would
be made clear, and that when the girl looked up she
would tell him about the picture, and why she happened
to be here and not with the woman in the train—who
must have been her mother.

When at last she did look up from the picture her
eyes were big and staring, and filled with a mysterious
questioning.

And David, feeling quite sure of himself, said :

“How did it happen that you were away up here and
not with your mother that night when I met her on the
train?”

“She wasn’t my mother,” replied the girl, looking at
him still in that strange way. “My mother is dead.”

192

ig that

would
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cing at
ad.”

CHAPTER XVIII

WHY MARGE RAN AWAY

AFTER that quietly spoken fact that her mother was
dead, David waited for Marge O’Doone to make some
further explanation. He had so firmly convinced him-
self that the picture he had carried was the key to all
that he wanted to know—first with Tavish, if he had
lived, and now with the girl—that it took him a moment
or two to understand what he saw in his companion’s
face. He realised then that his possession of the picture
and the manner in which it had come into his keeping
was a matter of great perplexity to her, and that the
woman whom he had met in the Transcontinental held
no significance for her at all, although he had told her
with rather marked emphasis that this woman—whom
he had thought was her mother—had been searching for
a man who bore her own name, O’Doone. The girl was
plainly expecting him to say something, and he reiter-
ated this fact—that the woman in the train was very
anxious to find a man whose name was O’Doone, and
that it was quite reasonable to suppose that her name
was O’Doone, especially as she had with her this picture
of a girl whose name was also O’Doone. It seemed to
him a powerful and utterly convincing argument—for
something. It was a combination of facts difficult to get
away from without certain conclusions, but this girl who
was So near to him that he could almost feel her breath
did not appear to comprehend fully their significance.
193

“sea a a ri eal Sb.

_~ >
<n reve fgedsisian es
maple irre eae ee i ce : = -

ae aa Saat ences
late shaiineas nena

The Girl Beyond the Trail

She was looking at him with wide-open, wondering
eyes, and when he had finished she said again :

“My mother is dead. And my father is dead too.
And my aunt is dead—up at The Nest. There isn’t any-
one left but my Uncle Hauck, and he is a brute. And
Brokaw. He isa bigger brute. It was he who made me
let him take this picture—two years ago. I have been
training Tara ‘o kill him, to kill anyone that touches
me, when I scream.” ;

It was wonderful to watch her eyes darken, tu see her
pupils grow big and luminous. She did not look at the
picture clutched in her hands, but straight at hin.

“He caught me there near the creek. He frightened
me. He made me let him take it. He wanted me to
take off my——”

A flood of wild blood rushed into her face. In her
heart was a fury.

“T wouldn’t be afraid now—not of him alone,” she
cried. “I would scream, and fight, and Tara would tear
him into pieces. Oh, Tara knows how to do it—now!
I have trained him.”

“He compelled you to let him take the picture,”
urged David gently. “And then——”

“I saw one of the pictures afterward. My aunt had
it. I wanted to destroy it, because I hated it, and I
hated him. But she said it was necessary for her to
keep it. She was sick then. I loved her. She would
put her arms around me every day. She used to kiss me
nights when I went to bed. But we were afraid of
Hauck—I don’t call him ‘uncle.’ She was afraid
of him. Once I jumped at him and_ scratched
his face when he swore at her, and he pulled my
hair. Ugh, I can feel it nc vy! She used to er,

194

ndering

sad too.
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Why Marge Ran Away

and she always put her arms around me closer
than ever then. She died that way, holding my head
down to her, and trying to say something. But i
couldn’t understand. I was crying. That was six
monihs ago. Since then I’ve been training Tara—to
kill.”

“And why have you trained Tara, little girl?”

David took her hand. It lay warm and unresisting
in his, a firm, very small little hand. He could feel a
slight shudder pass through her.

“I heard—something,” she said. “The Nest is a
terrible place. Haucl is terrible. Brokaw is terrible.
And Hauck sent away somewhere up there ”—she
pointed northward—" for Brokaw. He said—I belonged
to Brokaw. What did he mean?”

She turned so that she could look Straight into
David’s eyes. Her question was difficult to answer. If
she had been a woman

She saw the slow, gatherine tenseness in David’s
face as he looked for a mement away from her bewil-
dering eyes—the hardering muscles of his jaws, and
her own haad tightened as it lay in his.

“What did Hauck niean?” she persisted. “Why do
I belong to Brokaw—that great red brute?”

The hand he had been holding he took between both
his palms in a gentle, cr~sforting way. His voice was
gentle, too, but the hard —_-s did not leave his face.

“How old are you, Marge?” he asked.

“Seventezn,” she said.

“And I am—thirty-seven!” He turned to smile at
her. “See——” He raised a hand and took off his hat.
“My hair is getting grey!”

She looked up swiftly, and then, so suddenly that

195

The Girl Beyoud the Trail

it took his breath away, her fingers were running back
through his thick, blond hair.

“A little,” sue said. “But you are not old.”

She dropped her hand. Her whole movement had
been innocent as a child’s.

“And yet I am quite old,” he assured her. “Is this
man Brokaw at The Nest, Marge?”

She nodded.

“He has been there a month. He came after Hauck
sent for him, and went away again. Ther he came back.”

“And you are now running away from him?”

“From ail of them,” she said. “If it was just
Brokaw I wouldn’t be afraid. I would let him catch me,
and scream. Tara would kill him for me. But it’s
Hauck too. And the others. They are worse since
Nisikoos died. That is what I called her—Nisikoos—
my aunt. They are all terrible, and they all frighten
me, especially since they began to build a great cage
for Tara. Why should they build a cage for Tara, out
of small trees? Why do they want to shut him up?
None of them will tell me. Hauck says it is for another
bear that Brokaw is bringing down from the Yukon.
But I know they are lying It is for Tara.” Suddenly
her fingers clutched tightly at his hand, and for the first
time he saw under her long, shimmering lashes the
darkening fire of a real terror. “Why do I belong to
Brokaw?” she asked again, a little tremble in her
voice. “ Why did Hauck say that? Can—can a man—
buy a girl?”

The nails of her slender fingers were pricking his
flesh. David did not feel their hurt.

“What do you mean ?” he asked, trying to keep his
voice steady. “Did that man—Hauck—sell you?”

196

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Why Marge Ran Away

He looked away from her as he asked the question.
He was afraid, just then, that something was in his face
which he did not want her to see. He began to under-
stand; at least, he was beginning to picture a very
herrible possibility.

“I—don’t—know,” he heard her say, close to his
shoulder. “It was night before last I heard them
quarrelling, and I crept close to a door that was a little
open and looked in. Brokaw had given my uncle a bag
of gold, a little sack, like the miners bring down with
them, and as I looked he gave him another little sack,
and I heard him swear at my uncle and say: ‘ That’s
more than she is worth, but I'll give in. Now she’s
mine!’ I don’t know why it frightened me so. It
wasn’t Brokaw. I guess it was the terrible look in that
man’s face—my uncle’s. Tara and I ran away that
night. Why do you suppose they want to put Tara in a
cage? Do you think Brokaw was buying Tara to put
into that cage?”

He looked at her again. Her eyes were not so fear-
less now. They were deeply troubled.

“Was he buying Tara or me?” she insisted.

“Why do you have that thought—that he was
buying you?” David asked. “Has anything—hap-
pened ?”

A second time a furv of blood leapt into her face,
and her lashes shadowed a pair of blazing stars.

“He—that red brute—caught me in the dark two
weeks ago, and held me ‘here—and kissed me!” she
fairly panted at him, springing to her feet and standing
before him. “TI would have screamed, but it was in the
house, and Tara couldn’t come to me. I scratched him,
and fought, but he bent my head back until it hurt. He

197

The Girl Beyond the Trail

tried it again the day he gave my uncle the golc
but I struck him with a stick, and got away. Oh
I hate him! And he knows it. And my uncle curse
me for striking him! And that’s why—I’m runnin,
away——”

“I understand,” said David, rising and smiling a
her confidently, while in his veins his blood was run
ning like little streams of fire. “Don’t you believe nov
all that I’ve told you about the picture? How it triec
so hard to talk to me, and tell me to hurry? It go
me here just about in time, didn’t it? It'll be a great
joke on Brokaw, little girl. And on your Uncle Hauck.
A great joke, eh?” He laughed. He felt like laugh-
ing, even as his blood pounded through him at fever
heat. “You're a little brick, Marge—you and your
bear!”

It was the first time he had thought of the bear since
Marge had detached herself from the big beast to come
to him, and as he looked in its direction he gave a
Startled exclamation.

Baree and the grizzly had been measuring each other
for some time. To Baree this was the most amazing
experience in all his life, and flattened out between the
two rocks, he was at a loss to comprehend why his
master did not either run or shoot. He wanted to jump
out, if his master showed fight, and leap Straight at
that ugly monster, or he wanted to run away as fast as
his legs would carry him. He was Shivering in inde-
cision, waiting a signal from David to do either one or
the other. And Tara was now moving slowly toward
the dog! His huge head was hung low, swinging
Slightlv from side to side in a most terrifying way; his
great j.ws were agape, and the nearer he came to Baree

198

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Why Marge Ran Away

the smaller the dog seemed to grow between the rocks.
At David's sudden cry the girl had turned, and he was
amazed to hear her laughter, clear and sweet as a bell.
It was funny, that picture of the dog and the bear, if
one was in the mood to see the humour of it !

“Tara won’t hurt him,” she hurried to say, seeing
David’s uneasiness. ‘He loves dogs. He wants to
play with—what is his name?”

“Baree. And mine is David.”

“ Baree—David. See!”

Like a bird she had left his Side, and in an instant,
it seemed, was astride the big grizzly, digging her
fingers into Tara’s thick coat, smiling back at him, her
radiant hair about her like a cloud, filled with marvellous
red and gold fires in the sun.

“Come,” she said, holding out a hand to David. “I
want Tara to knov: you are our friend. Because ”—the
darkening came ‘ito her eyes again—“I have been
training him, and I want him to know he must not
hurt you.”

David went to them, little fancying the acquaintance
he was about to make until Marge slipped off her bear
and put her two arms unhesitatingly about his shoulders,
and drew him down with her close in front of Tara’s
big head and round, emotionless eyes. For a thrilling
moment or two she pressed her face close to his, looking
all the time straight at Tara, and talking to him steadily.
David did not fully sense what she was saying, except
that in a general way she was telling Tara that he must
never hurt this man no matter what happened. He felt
the warm crush of her hair on his neck and face. It
billowed on his breast for a moment. The girl’s hand

touched his cheek, warm and caressing. He made no
199

The Girl Beyond the Trail

movement of his own, except to rise rigidly when she
unclasped her arms from about his shoulders.

“There, he won’t hurt you now!” she exclaimed in
triumph.

Her cheeks were flushed, but not with embarrass-
ment. Her eyes were as clear as the violets he had
crushed under his feet in the mountain valleys. He
looked at her as she stood before him, so much like a
child, and yet enough of a woman to make his own
cheeks burn. And then he saw a sudden changing ex-
pression come into her face. There was something
pathetic about it, something that made him see again
what he had forgotten—her exhaustion, the evidences of
her struggle. She was looking at his pack.

“We haven’t had anything to eat since we ran
away,” she said simply. “I’m hungry.”

He had heard children say “I’m hungry” in that
same voice, with the same hopeful and entreating in-
sistence in it; he had spoken those words himself a
thousand times, to his mother, in just that same way
it seemed to him; and as she stood there, looking at his
pack, he was filled with a very strong desire to crumple
her up close in his arms—not as a woman, but as a
child. And this desire aeld hin. so still for a moment
that she thought he was waiting for her to explain.

“T fastened our bundle on Tara’s back, and we lost
it in the night coming up over the mountain,” she said.
“It was so steep that in places I had to catch hold of
Tara and let him drag me up.”

In another moment he was at his pack, opening it,
and tossing things to right and left on the white sand,
and the girl watched him, her eyes very bright with
anticipation.

200

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old of

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Why Marge Ran Away

“Coffee, bacon, bannock and potatoes,” he said,
making a quick inventory of his small stock of
provisions.

“Potatoes!” cried the girl.

“Yes, dehydrated. See? It looks like rice. One
pound of this equals fourteen pounds of fresh potatoes.
And you can’t tell the difference when it’s cooked right.
Now for a fire!”

She was darting this way and that, collecting small
dry sticks in the sand before he was on his feet. He
could not resist standing for a moment and watching
her. Her movements, even in her quick and eager quest
of fuel, were the most graceful he had ever seen in a
human being. Her little feet, clad in their ragged
moccasins, were as light as feathers; her body, when she
bent for a stick, was as lithe as a willow wand. And
yet she was tired! She was hungry! And he be-
lieved that her feet concealed in those rock-torn moc-
casins were bruised and sore. He went down to the
Stream for water, and in the few moments that he was
gone his mind worked swiftly. He believed that he
understood, perhaps even more than the girl herself.
There was something about her that was so sweetly
childish, in spite of her age, and her height, and her
amazing prettiness that was not all a child’s prettiness,
that he could not feel that she had realised fully the
peril from which she was fleeing when he found her.
He had guessed that her dread was only partly for
herself, and that the other part was for Tara, her bear.
She had asked him in a sort of plaintive anxiety and
with rather more of wonderment and perplexity in her
eyes than fear why she belonged to Brokaw, and what it
all meant, and if a man could buy a girl. It was not a

201

i
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if
;

a.
i
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i
:
4

The Girl Beyond the Trail

mystery to him that the “red brute” she had told h
about should want her. His puzzlement was that su
a thing could dare to happen, if he had guessed rig]
among men. Buy her? Of course, down there in t
big cities such things had happened hundreds and tho
sands of times, were happening every day, but he cou
not easily picture it happening up here, where m«
lived because of their strength. There must surely |
other men at The Nest than the two hated and feare
by the girl—Hauck, her uncle, and Brokaw, the “re
brute.”

She had built a little pile of sticks and dry mo:
ready for the touch of a match when he returned. Tar
had stretched himself out lazily in the sun, and Bare
was still betweer the two rocks, eyeing him watchfully
Before David lighted the fire he spread his one ligh
blanket out on the sand and made the girl sit down. Sh
was close to him, and her eyes did not leave his face fo
an instant. Whenever he looked up she was gazing
straight at him, and when he went down to the cree!
for another pail of water he felt that her eyes were stil
on him. When he turned to come back, with fifty
paces between them, she smiled at him and he waved
his hand at her. He asked her a great many questions
while he prepared their dinner. The Nest, he learne+,
was a free-trading place, and Hauck was its proprietor.
He was surprised when he learned that he was not on
Firepan Creek after all. The Firepan was over the
range, and there were a good many Indians to the north
and west of it. Miners came down frequently from the
Taku River country and the edge of the Yukon, she
said. At least she thought they were miners, for that
is what Hauck used to tell Nisikoos, her aunt. They

202

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They

Why Marge Ran Away

came after whisky. Always whisky. And the Indians
came in for liquor too. It was the chief article that
Hauck, her uncle, traded ~. He brought it from the
coast, in the winter time—many sledge-loads of it; and
some of those “miners” who came down from the north
carried away much of it. If it was summer they would
take it away on pack-horses. What would they do
with so much liquor, she wondered? A little of it made
such a beast of Hauck, and a beast of Brokaw, and it
drove the Indians wild. Hauck would n. ager allow
the [ndians to drink it at The Nest. y had to take
it away with them—into the mountain. _ Just now there
were quite a number of the “miners” down from the
north, ten or twelve of them. She had not been afraid
when Nisikoos, her aunt, was alive. But now there was
no other woman at The Nest except an old Indian
woman who did Hauck’s cooking. Hauck wanted no
one there. And she was afraid of those men. They
all feared Hauck, and she knew that Hauck was afraid
of Brol..w. She didn’t know why, but he was. And
she was afraid of them all, and hated them all. She
had been quite happy when Nisikoos was alive.
Nisikoos had taught her to read out of books, had taught
her things ever since she could remember. She could
write almost as good as Nisikoos. She said this a bit
proudly. But since her aunt had gone things were
terribly changed. Especially the men. They had
made her more and more afraid every day.

“None of them are like you,” she said with Startling
frankness, her eyes shining at him. “I would love to
be with you!”

He turned, then, to look at Tara dozing in the sun.

N 203

CHAPTER XIX

“I HATE THE PICTURE!”

THEY ate facing each other across a clean flat stone tt
was like a table. There was no hesitation on the gir
part, no false pride in the concealment of her hunge
To David it was a joy to watch her eat, and to catch tl
changing expressions in her eyes, and the little hal
smiles that took the place of words as he helped h
diligently to bacon and bannock and potatoes ar
coffee. The bright glow went only once out of hi
eyes, and that was when she looked at Tara and Baree.

“Tara has been eating roots all day,” she said; “bi
what will he eat?” and she nodded at the dog.

“He had a whistler for breakfast,” David assured het
“Fat as butter. He wouldn’t eat now, anyway. He i
too much interested in the bear.” She had finished
with a little sigh of content, when he asked : “What di
you mean when you say that you have trained Tara t
kill? Why have you trained him?”

“I began the day after Brokaw did that—held me
there in his arms, with my head bent back. Ugh, he
was terrible, with his face so close to mine!” She shud-
dered. ‘Afterward I washed my face, and scrubbed
it hard, but I could still feel it. I can feel it now!”
Her eyes were darkening again, as the sun darkens
when a thunder-cloud passes under it. “I wanted to
make Tara understand what he must do after that, so
I stole some of Brokaw’s clothes and carried them up

204

Stone that
the girl’s
r hunger.
catch the
ittle half-
eIped her
toes and
it of her
1 Baree.

‘id ; “but

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» He is
finished,
What do

Tara to

held me
Jgh, he
he shud-
crubbed
now !”
darkens
inted to
that, so

hem up

“T Hate the Picture!”

to a little plain on the side of a mountain. I stuffed
them with grass, and made a—what do you call it? In
Indian it is issena-koosewin——”

“A dummy,” he said.

She nodded.

“Yes, that is it. Then I would go with it a little
distance from Tara and would begin to Struggle with it,
and scream. The third time, when Tara saw me lying
under it, kicking and screaming, he gave it a blow with
his paw that ripped it clean in two! And after
that——”

Her eyes were glorious in their wild triumph.

“He would tear it into bits,” she cried breathlessly.
“It would take me a whole day to mend it again, and at
last I had to steal more clothes. I took Hauck’s this
time. And soon they were gone too. That is just
what Tara will do to a man—when I fight and scream! ”

“And a little while ago you were ready to jump at
me, and fight and scream,” he reminded her, smiling
across their rock table.

“Not after you spoke to me,” she said, so quickly
that the words seemed to spring straight from her heart.
“I wasn’t afraid then. I was—glad. No, I wouldn’t
scream—not even if you held me like Brokaw did!”

He felt the warm blood rising under his skin again.
It was impossible to keep it down. And he was
ashamed of it—ashamed of the thought that for an
instant was in his mind. The soul of this wild little
mountain creature was in her eyes. Her lips made no
concealment of its thoughts or its emotions, pure as the
blue skies above them and as ungoverned by conven-
tionality as the winds that shifted up and down the
valleys. She was a new sort of being to him, « child-

205

The Girl Beyond the Trail

woman, a little wonder-nymph that had grown up witl
the flowers. And yet not so little after all. He hac
noticed that the top of her shining head came con
siderably above his chin,

“Then you will not be afraid to go back to The Nes
with me?” he asked.

“No,” she said, with a direct and amazing confidence
“But I’d rather run away with you.” Then she addec
quickly, before he could speak: “Didn’t you say you
came all that way—hundrecs of miles—to find me?
Then why must we go back ?”

He explained to her as clearly as he could, and as
reason seemed to point out to him. It was impossible,
he assured her, that Brokaw or Hauck or any other man
could harm her now that he was here to take care of her
and straighten matters out. He was as frank with her
as she had been with him. Her eyes widened when he
told her that he did not believe Hauck was her uncle,
and that he was certain the woman whom he had met
that night on the Transcontinental, and who was search-
ing for an O’Doone, had some deep interest in her. He
must discover, if possible, how the picture had got to
her, and who she was, and he could do this only by
going to The Nest and learning the truth straight from
Hauck. Then they would go on to the coast, which
would be an easy journey. He told her that Hauck
and Brokaw would not dare to cause them trouble, as
they were carrying on a business for which the pro-
vincial police would make short shrift of them if they
knew. They held the whip-hand, he and Marge. Her
eyes shone with increasing faith as he talked. She had
leaned a little over the narrow rock between them so
that her thick curls fell in shining clusters under his

206

up with
He had
me con-

‘he Nest

fidence.
e added
say you
nd me?

and as
ossible,
1er man
e of her
vith her
vhen he
r uncle,
iad met
search-
pr. He
| got to
ynly by
ht from
_ which
Hauck
ible, as
he pro-
if they
>. Her
she had
hem so
der his

“T Hate the Picture!”

eyes, and suddenly she reached out her arms through
them and her two hands touched his face.

“And you will take me away? You promise?”

“My dear child, that is just what I came for,’’
he said, feigning to be surprised at her question.
“Fifteen hundred miles for just that! Now don’t you
believe all that I’ve told you about the picture ?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

She had drawn back, and was looking at him so
steadily and with such wondering depths in her eyes
that he found himself compelled for an instant to turn
his own gaze carelessly away.

“And you used to talk to it,” she said, “and it
seemed alive ?”

“Very much alive, Marge.”

“And you dreamed about me?”

He had said that, and he felt again that warm rise
of blood. He felt himself in a difficult place. If she
had been older, or even younger

“Yes,” he said truthfully.

Me feared one other question was quite uncomfort-
ably near. But it didn’t come. The girl rose suddenly
to her feet, flung back her hair, and ran to Tara dozing
in the sun. What she was saying to the great beast,
with her arms about its shaggy neck, David could only
guess. He fou id himself laughing again, quietly, of
course, with his back to her as he picked up their
dinner things. He had not anticipated such en experi-
ence as this. Ii rather unsettled him. It was amusing
—and had a decided thrill to it. Undoubtedly Hauck
and Brokaw were rough men; from what she had told
him he was convinced they were lawless men, engaged
in a very wide “underground” trade in whisky. But

207

The Girl Beyond the Trail

he believed that he would not find them as bad as h
had pictured them at first, even though The Nest was
horrible place for the girl. Her running away was th
most natural thing in the world—for her. She was a
amazingly spontaneous little creature, full of courag
and a fierce determination to fight someone, an
probably to-day or to-morrow she would have turne
homeward, quite satisfied with her adventure, an
nibbling roots along with Tara to keep herself alive
Thought of her hunger and of the dire necessity he ha
found her in drove the smile from his lips. He wa
finishing his pa: when she left the bear and came t
him.

“If we are to get over the mountain before dark w
must hurry,” she said. ‘See, it is a big mountain! ”

She pointed to a barren break in the northwarc
rauge, Close up to the snow-covered peaks.

“And it’s cold up there when night comes,” sh
added.

“Can you make it?” David asked. “Aren’t you
tired? Your feet sore? We can wait here unti
morning——”

“T can climb it,” she cried, with an excitement which
he had not seen in her before. “I can climb it—anc
travel all night—to tell Brokaw and Hauck I don’t
belong to them any more, and that we’re going away!
Brokaw will be like a mad beast, and before we go I'll
Scratch his eyes out! ”

“Good Lord!” gasped David under his breath.

“And if Hauck swears at me I’ll scratch his ort!”
she declared, trembling in the glorious anticipation
of her vengeance. “I’ll—I’ll scratch his out, anyway,
for what he did to Nisikoos !”

208

ad as he
st was a
was the
> was an
courage
ne, and
e turned
ire, and
lf alive.
7 he had
He was
came to

dark we
ain!”
rthward

as,”’ she
n’t you
re. until

it which
it—and
I don’t
r away !
> go Ill

th.

sort!”
cipation
inyway,

“TI Hate the Picture!”

David stared at her. She was looking away from
him, her eyes on the break between the mountains, and
he noticed how tense her slender body had become and
how tightly her hands were clenched.

“They won’t dare to touch me or swear at me when
you are there,” she added, with sublime faith.

She turned in time to catch the look in his face.
Swiftly the excitement faded out of her own. She
touched his arm, hesitatingly.

‘““Wouldn’t—you want me—to scratch out their
eyes?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“It wouldn’t do,” he said. ‘We must be very careful.
We mustn’t let them know you ran away. We must
tell them you climbed up the mountain, and got lost.”

“T never get lost,” she protested.

“But we must tell them that just the same,” he
insisted. “Will you?”

She nodded emphatically.

“And now, before we start,
have 1’t followed you?”

“Because I came over that mountain,” she replied,
pointing again toward ‘ne break. “It’s all rock, and
Tara left no marks. They wouldn’t think we’d climb
over the range. They’ve been looking for us in the
other valley, if they’ve hunted for us at all. We were
going to clinio over that range too.” She turned so
that she was pointing to the south.

“And then?”

“There are people off there.
talk about them.”

“Did you ever hear him speak of a man by the

name of Tavish ?” he asked, watching her closely.
209

tell me why they

I’ve heard Hauck

The Girl Beyond the Trail

““Tavish ?” She pursed her lips into a red O, an
little lines gathered thoughtfully between her eyes
“Tavish? No-o-o, I never have.”

“He lived at one time on Firepan Creek. Had th
smallpox,” said David.

“That is terrible,” the girl shuddered. ‘The Indian
die of it up here. Hauck says that my father an
mother died of the smallpox, before I could remember
That’s what he says—before I could remember. But
do remember, like in a dream. I can see a woman’.
face sometimes, and I can remember a cabin, and snow
and lots of dogs. Are you ready to go?”

He shouldered his pack, and as he arranged the
Straps Marge ran to Tara. At her command the big
beast rose slowly and stood before her swinging his
head from side to side, his jaws agape. David callec
to Baree, and the dog came to him like a streak and
stood against his leg, snarling fiercely.

“Tut, tut,” admonished David softly, laying a hand
on his head. “We're all friends, boy. Look here!”

He walked straight over to the grizzly and tried to
induce Baree to follow him. Baree came half-way and
then sat himself on his haunches and refused to budge
another inch, an expression so doleful in his face that it
drew a peal of laughter from the girl’s lips, in which
David found it impossible not to join. It was delight-
fully infectious; he was laughing more with her than at
Baree. In the same breath his merriment was cut short
by an unexpected and most amazing discovery. Tara,
after all, had his usefulness. His mistress had vaulted
astride of him, and was nudging him with her heels,
leaning forward so that with one hand she was
pulling at his left ear. The bear turned Slowly, his

210

| O, and
er eyes.

Had the

‘Indians
her and
member.

But |
voman's
id snow,

ged the
the big
‘ing his
d called
eak and

a hand
ere!”
tried to
vay and
» budge
2 that it
1 which
delight-
than at
ut short
Tara,
vaulted
r heels,
ne was
‘ly, his

“I Hate the Picture!”

finger-long claws clicking on the stones, and when his
head was in the right direction Marge released his ear
and spoke sharply, beating a tattoo with her heels at
the same time.

““Neah, Tara—neah!” she cried.

After a moment’s hesitation, in which the grizzly
seemed to be getting his bearings, Tara struck out
straight for the break between the mountains with his
burden. The girl turned and waved a beckoning hand
at David.

“ Pa-o—you must hurry!” she called to him, laugh-
ing at the astonishment in his face.

He had started to fill and light his pipe, but for the
next few minutes he forgot that the pipe was in his
hand. His eyes did not leave the huge beast ambling
along a dozen paces ahead of him or the slip of a girl
who rode him. He had caught a glimpse of Baree, and
the dog’s eyes seemed to be bulging. He half believed
that his own mouth was open when the girl called to
him. What «ad h ppened was most startlingly unex-
pected, and what he stared at now was—perfectly
immense! Tara travelled with the rolling, slouching
gait typical of the wide-quartered grizzly, and the girl
was a Sinuous part of him—by all odds the most wonder-
ful thing in the world to David at this moment. Her
hair streamed down her back in a cascade of sunlit
glory. She flung back her head, and he thought of a
wonderful golden-bronze flower. He heard her laugh,
and cry out to Tara, and when the grizzly clambered up
a bit of steep slide she leaned forward and became a
part uf the bear’s back, her curls shimmering in the
thick ruff of Tara’s neck. As he toiled upward in their
wake he caught a glimpse of her looking back at him

The Girl Beyond the Trail

from the top of the slide, her eyes shining and her lips
smiling at him, and she reminded him of something he
had read about Leucosia, his favourite of the three
Sirens, only in this instance it was a siren of the
mountains instead of the sea that was leading him on
to a quick doom—if he had to keep up with that bear!
His breath came more quickly. In ten minutes he was
gasping for wind, and in despair slackened his pace
as the bear and his rider disappeared over the crest of
the first slope. She was waving at him then, two
hundred yards up that infernal hill, and he was sure
that she was laughing. He had almost reached the
top when he saw her sitting in the shade of a rock
watching him as he toiled upward. There was a mis-
chievous seriousness in the blue of her eyes when he
reached her side.

“I’m sorry, Sakewawin,” she said, lowering her eyes
until they were hidden under the silken shezn of her
long lashes. “I couldn’t make Tara go slower. He
is hungry, and he knows that he is going home.”

“And I thought you had sore feet,” he managed to

Say.
“I don’t ride him coming down a mountain,” she
explained, thrusting out her ragged little feet. “I can’t
hang on, and I slip over his head. You must walk
ahead of Tara. That will hold him back.”

He tried this experiment when they continued their
ascent, and Tara followed so uncomfortably close that
at times David could feel his warm breath against his
hand. When they reached the second slope the girl
walked beside him. For half a mile it was not a bad
climb, and there was soft grass underfoot. After that
came the rock and shale, and the air grew steadily

212

nme ahem a ttt

‘‘I Hate the Picture!”

colder. They had started at one o’clock, and it was
five when they reached the first snow. It was six when
they stood at the summit. Under them lay the valley
of the Firepan, a broad, sun-filled sweep of scattered
timber and green plain, and the girl pointed into it,
north and west.

“Off there is The Nest,” she said. “We could
almost see it if it wasn’t for that big red mountain.”

She was very tired, though she had ridden Tara at
least two-thirds of the distance up the mountain. In
her eyes was the mistiness of exhaustion, and as a chill
wind swept about them she leaned against David, and
he could feel that her endurance was nearly gone. As
they had come up to the snow-line he had made her put
on the light woollen shirt he carried in his pack, and
the big handkerchief in which he had so long wrapped
the picture he had fastened scarf-like about her head,
so she was not cold. But she looked pathetically child-
like and out of place standing here beside him at the
very top of the world, with the valley so far down that
the clumps of timber in it were like painted splashes.
It was half a mile down to the first bit of timber—a
small round patch of it in a narrow dip, and he pointed
to it encouragingly.

““We’ll camp there and have supper. I believe it’s
far enough down for a fire. And if it is impossible for
you to ride Tara—I’m going to carry you!”

“You can’t, Sakewawin,” she sighed, letting her
head touch his arm for a moment. “It is more
difficult to carry a load down a mountain than up. I
can walk.”

Before he could stop her she had begun to descend.
They went down fast, three times as fast as they had

213

The Girl Beyond the Trail

climbed the other side, and when half an hour later they
reached the timber in the dip he. . .hat his back was
broken. The girl had kept ahead of him persistently,
and with a little cry of triumph she dropped down at
the foot of the first balsam they came to. The pupils
of her eyes were big and liquid-dark as she looked up
at him, quivering with the strain of that last courageous
effort, and yet she tried to smile at him.

“You may carry me—some time—but not down a
mountain,” she said, and laid hier head wearily on the
pillow of her arm, so that her face was concealed from
him. “And now—please get supper, Sakewawin.”

He spread his blanket over her before he began
searching for a camp site. He noticed that Tara was
already hunting for roots. Baree followed close at his
master’s heels. Quite near David found a Streamlet that
trickled down from the Snowline, and to a grassy plot
on the edge of this he dragged a quantity of dry wood
and built a fire. Then he made a thick couch of balsam
boughs, and went to his little companion. In the half
hour he had been at work she had fallen asleep. Utter
exhaustion was in the limpness of her slender body as
he raised her gently in his arms. The handkerchief had
slipped back over her shoulder, and she was wonder-
fully sweet, and helpless, and pretty as she lay with her
head on his breast. She was still asleep when he placed
her on the balsams. It was dark wen he awakened her
for supper. The fire was burning brightly. Tara had
Stretched himself out in a huge dark bulk in the outer
glow of it. Baree was close to the fire. The girl sat
up, rubbed her ey’s, and stared at David.

“Sakewawin,” she whispered then, looking about her
in a moment’s bewilderment.

214

ter they
ick was
Stently,
lown at
- pupils
ked up
"ageous

Sl ce in aie

“T Hate the Picture!”

“Supper,” he smiled. ‘I did it all while you were
napping, little lady. Are you hungry?”

He had spread their meal so that she did not have to
move frou: her balsams, and he had brought a short
piece of timber to place as a rest at her back, cushioned
by his shoulder-pack and the blanket. After all his
trouble she did not eat much. The mistiness was still
in her eyes, so after he had finished he took away the
timber and made a deep pillow for her of the balsams,
that she might lie restfully, with her head well up, while
he smoked. He did not want her to go to sleep. He
wanted to talk. And he began by asking how she had
so carelessly run away with only a pair of moccasins
on her feet and no clothes but the thin garments she
was wearing.

“They were in Tara’s pack, Sakewawin,” she ex-
plained, her eyes glowing like sleepy pools in the fire-
glow. “They were lost.”

He began then to tell her about Father Roland.
She listened, growing sleepier, her lashes drooping
slowly until they formed dark circles on her cheeks.
He was close enough to marvel at their length, and as
he watched them, quivering in her efforts to keep awake
and listen to him, they seemed to him like the dark
petals of two beautiful flowers closing slumbrously for
the night. It was a wonderful thing to see them open
suddenly and find the full glory of the sleep-filled eyes
on him for an instant, and then to watch them slowly
close again as she fought valiantly to conquer her
irresistible drowsiness, the merest dimpling of a
smile on her lips. The last time she opened them
he had her picture in his hand, and was looking at
it, quite close to her, with the fire lighting it up.

2rg

The Girl Beyond the Trail

For a moment he thought the sight of it had awakened
her completely.

“Throw it into the fire,” she said. ‘Brokaw made
me let him take it, and I hate it. I hate Brokaw. I
hate the picture. Burn it.”

“But I must keep it,” he protested. “Burn it!
Why, it’s——”

“You \.on’t want it—after to-night.”

Her eyes were closing again, heavily, for the last
time.

“Why ?” he asked, bending over her.

“Because, Sakewawin—you have me—now,” came
her voice in drowsy softness; and the long lashes lay
quietly against her cheeks.

216

vakened

w made
caw. I

urn it!

he last

came
hes lay

i
{

sepgteP eee:

CHAPTER Xz
AT “THE NEST”’

He thought of her words a long time after she had
fallen asleep. Even in that last moment of her con-
sciousness he had found her voice filled with a strange
faith and a wonderful assurance as it had drifted away
in a whisper. He would not want the picture any more
—because he had her! That was what she had said,
and he knew it was her soul that had spoken to him as
she had hovered that instant between wakefulness and
slumber. He looked at her, sleeping under his eyes,
and he felt upon him for the first time the weight of a
sudden trouble, a gloomy foreboding—and yet under it
all, like a fire banked beneath dead ash, was the warm
thrill of his possession. He had spread his blanket
over her, and now he leaned over and drew her thick
curls back from her face. They were warm and soft
in his fingers, strangely sweet to touch, and for a
moment or two he fondled them while he gazed steadily
into the childish loveliness of her face, dimpled stil! by
that shadow of a smile with which she had fallen asleep.
He was beginning to feel that he had accepted for him-
self a tremendous task, and that she, not much more
than a child, had of course Scarcely foreseen its pos-
sibilities. Her faith in him was a pleasurable thing.
It was absolute. He realised it more as the hours
dragged on and he sat alone by the fire. So great was
it that she was going back fearlessly to those whom
217

The Girl Beyond the Trail

she hated and feared. Not only fearlessly, but with a
certain defiant satisfaction. He could fancy her suying
to Hauck and the Red Brute: “I’ve come back. Now
touch me if you dare!” What would he have to do to
live up to that surety of her confidence inhim? =. yreat
deal undoubtedly. And if he won for her, as she fully
expected him to win, what would he do with her? Take
her to the coast—put her into a school somewhere down
south. That was his first notion. For she looked more
than ever like a child to him as she lay asleep on her
bed of balsams.

He tried to picture Brokaw. He tried to bring up
Hauck in his mental vision, and he thought over again
all the girl had told him about herself and these men.
As he looked at her now, a little, softly-breathing thing
under his grey blanket, it was hard for him to believe
anything so horrible as she had suggested. Perhaps
her fears had been grossly exaggerated. The exchange
of gold between Hauck and the Red Brute had prob-
ably been for something else. Even men engulfed
in the brutality of the trade they were in would not think
of such an appalling crime. And then—with a fierce-
ness that made his blood burn—came the thought of
that time when Brokaw had caught her in his arms,
and had held her head back until it hurt—and had
kissed her! Baree had crept between his knees, and
David's fingers closed so tightly in the loose skin of his
neck that the dog whined. That was the proof! And
Hauck had cursed her because she had struck Brokaw
the second time. That was the second proof! He rose
to his feet and stood gazing down at the girl. He stood
there for a long time without moving or making a
sound.

218

vith a

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Now
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#
:

At “The Nest”

“A little woman,” he whispered to himself at last.
“Not a child.”

From that moment his blood was hot with a desire to
reach The Nest. He had never thought seriously of
physical struggle with men except in the way of sport.
His disposition had always been to regard such a thing
as barbarous, and he had never taken advantage of his
skill with the gloves as the average man might very pro-
perly have done. To fight was to lower one’s self-
respect enormously, he thought. It was not a matter of
timidity, but of very strong conviction—an entrench-
ment that had saved him from wreaking vengeance in
an hour when the other man would have killed.
But there, in that room in his home, he had stood face
to face with a black and revolting sin. There had been
nothing left to shield, nothing to protect. Here it was
different. A soul had given itself into his protection, a
soul as pure as the stars shining over the mountain-tops,
and its little keeper lay there under his eyes sleeping
in the sweet faith that it was safe with him. A little
later his fingers tingled with an odd thrill as he took his
automatic out of his pack, loaded it carefully, and placed
it in his pocket where it could be easily reached. It
was a declaration of something ultimately definite. He
stretched himself out near the fire and went to sleep with
the force of it brewing Strangely within him.

He was awake with the summer dawn, and the sun
was beginning to tint up the big red mountain when
they began the descent into the valley. Before they
started he loaned the girl his comb and single military
brush, and for fifteen minutes sat watching her while
she brushed the tangles out of her hair until it fel] about
her in a thick, waving splendour. At the nape of her

0) 219

The Girl Beyond the Trail

neck she tied it with a bit of string which he found fo
her, and after that, as they travelled downward, h
observed how the rebellious tresses, shimmering an
dancing about her, persisted in forming themselves int
curls again. In an hour they had reached the valley
and for a spell they sat down to rest, while Tara forage:
among the rocks for marmots. It was a wonderfu
valley into which they had come. From where they sa
it was like an immense park. Green slopes reache
almost to the summits of the mountains, and to a poin
half-way up these slopes—the last timber-line—clump
of spruce and balsam trees were scattered over the gree:
as if set there by the hands of men. Some of thes
timber-patches were no larger than the decorativ
clumps in a city park, and others covered acres and ten
of acres; and at the foot of the slopes on either side, lik
decorative fringes, were thin and unbroken lines o
forest. Between these two lines of fores’ the ope:
valley of soft and undulating meadow, a with it
purplish bosks of buffalo willow and mo.ntain sage
its green coppices of wild rose and thorn, and its clump.
of trees. In the hollow of the valley ran a stream.
And this was her home! She was telling him abou
it as they sat there, and he listened to her, and watche
her bird-like movements, without breaking in to as!
questions which the night had shaped in his mind. Sh
pointed out grey summits on which she had stood. Of
there, just visible in the grey mist of early sunshine
was the mountain where she had found Tara five year
ago, a tiny cub who must have lost his mother
Perhaps the Indians had killed her. And that long
rock-strewn slide, so steep in places that he shuddere
when he thought of what she had done, was where sh
220

ound for
vard, he
ing and
lves into
2 valley,
foraged
onderful
they sat
reached
) a point
—clumps
he green
of these
>corative
and tens
side, like
lines of
the open
with its
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am.
im about
watched
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id. She
od. Off
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ive years
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here she

i; igwhaipaaLATG| + cecal slang

At “The Nest ”

and Tara had climbed over the range in their flight.
She chose the rocks so that Tara would leave no trail.
He regarded that slide as conclusive evidence of the
very definite resolution that must have inspired her. A
fit of girlish temper would not have taken her up that
rock-slide, and in the night. He thought it time to
speak of what was weighing on his mind.

“Listen to me, Marge,” he said, pointing toward the
red mountain ahead of them. “Off there, you say, is
The Nest. What are we going to do when we arrive
there?”

The little lines gathered between her eyes again as
she looked at him.

“Why, tell them,” she said.

“Tell them what?”

“That you’ve come for me, and that we’re going
away, Sakewawin.”

“And if they object? If Brokaw and Hauck say you
cannot go?”

“We'll go anyway, Sakewawin.”

“That’s a pretty name you’ve given me,”
thinking of something else. “TI like it.”

For the first time she blushed, blushed until her face

was like one of the wild roses in those prickly copses of
the valley.

And then he added :

“You must not tell them too much at first,
Remember that you
must give me time
Brokaw.”

She nodded, but there was a
eyes, and he saw for an instan
her throat.

he mused,

Marge.
were lost, and I found you. You

to get acquainted with Hauck and

moment’s anxiety in her
t the slightest quiver in

221

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“You won’t—let them—keep me? No matter what
they say—you won’t let them keep me?”

He jumped up with a laugh and tilted up her chin
so that he looked straight into her eyes, and her faith
filled them again in a flood.

“No, you’re going with me,” he promised again.
“Come. I’m quite anxious to meet Hauck and the Red
Brute!”

It seemed singular to David that they met no one
in the valley that day, and the girl’s explanation that
practically all travel came from the north and west, and
stopped at The Nest, did not fully satisfy him. He
still wondered why they did not encounter one of the
searching parties that must have been sent out for her
until she told him that since Nisikoos died she and Tara
went quite frequently into the mountains and remained
all night, so that perhaps no search had been made for
her after all. Hauck had not seemed to care. More
frequently than not he never missed her. Twice she
had been away for two nights and two days. It
was only because Brokaw had given that gold to
Hauck that she had feared pursuit. If Hauck had
bought her——

She spoke of that possible sale as if she might have
been the merest sort of chattel. And then she startled
him by saying:

“TI have known of those white men from the north
buying Indian girls. I have seen them sold for whisky.
Ugh!” She shuddered. ‘‘Nisikoos and I overheard
them one night. Hauck wes selling a girl for a little
sack of gold—like that. isi! 90s held me tighter than
ever that night. I don’t know why. She was terribly
afraid of that man—Hauck. Why did she live with

222

er what

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again.
he Red

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At “ The™ Nest ”

him if she was afraid of him? Do you know? I
wouldn’t. I’d run away.”

He shook his head.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you, my child.”

Her eyes turned on him suddenly.

‘““Why do you call me that—a child?”

“Because you’re not a woman; because you’re so
very, very young, and I’m so very old,” he laughed.

For a long time after that she was silent as they
travelled steadily toward the red mountain.

They ate their dinner in the sombre shadow of it.
Most of the afternoon Marge rode her bear. It was sun-
down when they stopped for their last meal. The Nest
was still three miles farther on, and the stars were shin-
ing brilliantly in the sky before they came to the little
wooded plain in the edge of which Hauck had hidden
away his place of trade. When they were some hundred
yards away they came over a knoll, and David saw the
glow of fires. The girl stopped suddenly, and her hand
caught his arm. He counted four of those fires in the
open. A fifth glowed faintly, as if back in timber.
Sounds came to them; the slow, hollow booming of a
tom-tom, and voices. They could see shadows moving.
The girl’s fingers were pinching David’s arm.

“The Indians have come in,” she whispered.

There was a thrill of uneasiness in her words. It
was not fear. He could see that she was puzzled, and
that she had not expected to find the fires, or those
moving shadows. Her eyes were steady and shining as
she looked at him. It seemed to him that she had
grown taller, and more like a woman, as they stood
there. Something in her face made him ask:

“Why have they come? ”

223

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SH
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The Girl Beyond the Trail

“I don’t know,” she said.

She started down the knoll straight for the fires.
Tara and Baree filed behind them. Beyond the glow of
the camps a dark bulk took shape against the blackness
of the forest, and David guessed that it was The Nest.
He made out a deep, low building, unlighted so far as
he could see. Then they entered into the fire-glow.
Their appearance produced a strange and instant quiet.
The beating of the tom-tom ceased. Voices died.
Dark faces stared—and that was all. There were half a
hundred of them about the fires, David figured. And not
a white man’s face among them. They were all
Indian. A lean, night-eyed, sinister-looking lot. He
was conscious that they were scrutinising him more than
the girl. He could almost feel the prick of their eyes.
With her head up his companion walked between the
fires and beyond them, looking neither to one side nor
the other. They turned the end of the huge log build-
ing, and on this side it was glowing dimly with light,
and David heard faintly other voices. The girl passed
swiftly into a hollow of gloom, calling softly to Tara.
The bear followed her, a grotesque, slow-moving hulk,
and David waited. He heard the clink of a chain. A
moment later she returned to him.

“There is a light in Hauck’s room,” she said. “His
council room, he calls it, where he makes his bargains.
I hope they are both there, Sakewawin, both Hauck and
Brokaw.” She seized his hand, and held it tightly as
she led him deeper into darkness. “I wonder why so
many of the Indians are in? I did not know they were
coming. It is the wrong time of year for—a crowd like
that.”

He felt the quiver in her voice. She was quite

224

e fires.
glow of
ackness
e Nest.
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t quiet.
3 died.
2 half a
ind not
ere all

He
re than
ir eyes,
een the
ide nor
y build-
a light,
passed
9 Tara.
g hulk,
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“His
irgains.
ack and
thtly as
why so
ey were
wd like

S quite

At “The Nest”

excited, he knew. And yet not about the Indians, or
the strangeness of their presence. It was her triumph
chat made her tremble in the darkness, a wonderful
anticipation of uhe greatest event that had ever happened
in her life. She hoped that Hauck and Brokaw were
in that room! She would confront them there, with
him. That was it. She felt that her bondage, her
prisonment in this savage place, was ended, and she
was eager to find them, and let them know that she was
no longer afraid, or alone—no longer need obey or fear
them. He felt the thrill of it in the hot, fierce little
clasp of her hand. He saw it glowing in her eyes when
they passed through the light of a window. Then they
turned again, at the back of the building. They paused
at a door. Not a ray of light broke the gloom here.
The stars in the sky seemed to make the blackness
deeper. Her fingers tightened.

“You must be careful,” he said, ‘“and—remember.”

“T will,” sh. whispered.

It was his list warning. The door opened slowly,
with a creaking sound, and they entered into a long,
gloomy hall illumined by a single oil lamp that sput-
tered and smoked in its bracket on one of the walls.
The hall gave him an idea of the immensity of the
building. From the far end of it, through a partly open
door, came a reek of tobacco smoke, and loud voices, a
burst of coarse laughter, a sudden volley of curses that
died away in a still louder roar of merriment. Someone
closed the door from inside. The girl was staring,
white-faced and wild-eyed, toward the end of the hall
and shuddering.

“That is the way it has been—growing worse and
worse since Nisikoos died,” she said. “In there th. 2

225

The Girl Beyond the Trail

white men who come down from the north drink ani
gamble, and quarre’ always quarrelling. This room i
ours—Nisikoos’s and mine.” She touched with he
hand a door near which they were standing. Then sh
pointed to another—.nere were half a dozen doors uy
and down that hall—‘“ And that is Hauck’s.”

He threw off his pack and placed it 2n the floor
with his rifle across it. When he straightened the gir
was listening at the door of Hauck’s room. Beckoning
to him she knocked on it lightly, and then opened it.
David entered close behind her. It was rather a large
room, his one impression as he crossed the threshold.
In the centre of it was a table, and over the table hung
an oil lamp with a tin reflector. In the light of this
lamp sat two men. In his first glance he made up his
mind which was Hauck and which was Brokaw. It
was Brokaw, he thought, who was facing them as they
entered—a man he could hate even if he had never heard
of him before. Big. Loose-shouldered. A. car-
nivorous-looking giant with a mottled, reddish face and
bleary eyes that had an amazed and watery stare in
them. Apparently the girl’s knock had not been heard,
for it was a moment before the other man swung slowly
about in his chair so that he could see them. That was
Hauck. David knew it. He was almost a half smaller
than the other, with rounded, bullish shoulders, a thick
neck, and eyes wherein might lurk an incredible cruelty.
He popped half out of his seat when he saw the giri—
and a stranger. His jaws seemed to tighten with a
snap. A snap that could almost be heard. But it was
Brokaw’s face that held David’s eyes. He was two-
thirds drunk. There was no doubt about it, if he was
any sort of judge of that kind of imbecility. One of his

226

rink and
, room is
vith her
“hen she
loors up

1e floor,
the girl
ckoning
ened it.

stare in
. heard,
Slowly
hat was
smaller
a thick
ruelty.
. giri—
with a
it was
is two-
he was
‘of his

At “The Nest”

thick, huge hands was gripping a bottle. Hauck had
evidently been reading him something out of a ledger—
a post ledger, which he held now in one hand. David
was surprised at the quiet and unemotional way in
which the girl began speaking. She said that she had
wandered over into the other valley and was lost when
this stranger found her. He had been good to her, and
was on his way to the settlement on the coast. His
name was——

She got no farther than that. Brokaw had taken his
devouring gaze from her and was staring at David.
He lurched suddenly to his feet and leaned over the
table, a new sort of surprise in his heavy countenance.
He stretched out a hand. His voice was a bellow.

“McKenna! ”

He was speaking directly at David—calling him by a
name. There was as little doubt of that as of his
drunkenness. There was also an unmistakable note of
fellowship in his voice. McKenna! David opened
his mouth to correct him when a_ second thought
occurred to him in a mildly inspirational way. Why
not McKenna? The girl was looking at him, a bit
Surprised, questioning him in the directness of her gaze.
He nodded, and smiled at Brokaw. The giant came
around the table, still holding out his big red hand.

“Mac! God!—you don’t mean to say you’ve
forgotten——”

David took the hand.

“Brokaw!” he chanced.

The other’s hand was as cold as a piece of beef. But
it possessed a crushing Strength. Hauck was Staring
from one to the other, and suddenly Brokaw turned to
him, still pumping David’s hand.

227

dei

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“McKenna—that young devil of Kicking Horse,
Hauck! You've heard me speak of him. McKenna——”

The girl had backed to the door. She was pale.
Her eyes were shining, and she was looking straight at
David when Brokaw released his hand.

“Good night, Sakewawin!” she said.

It was very distinct, that word—Sakewawin! David
had never heard it come quite so clearly from her lips.
There was something of defiance and pride in its utter-
ance, an intentional and decisive emphasis of it. She
smiled at him as she went through the door, and in that
same breath Hauck had followed her. They disap-
peared. When David turned he found Brokaw backed
against the table, his two hands gripping the edges of
it, his face distorted by passion. It was a terrible face
to look into—to stand before alone in that room—a face
filled with murder and menace. So sudden had been
the change in it that David was stunned for a moment.
In that space of perhaps a quarter of a minute neither
uttered a sound. Then Brokaw leaned slowly forward,
his great hands clenched, and demanded in a hissing
voice :

“What did she mean when she called you that—
Sakewawin? What did she mean?”

It was not the voice of a drunken man now, but the
voice of a man ready to kill.

223

Horse,
na——””
iS pale.
sight at

David
er lips.
'S utter-

She
in that
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backed
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—a face
ad been
1oment.
neither
orward,
hissing

| that-——

but the

CHAPTER XXI

BROKAW 1S COMMUNICATIVE

““SAKEWAWIN !—what did she mean when she called you
that ?”

It was Brokaw’s voice again, turning the words
round, but repeating them. He made a step toward
David, his hands clenched tighter and his whole bulk
growing tense. His eyes, blazing as if through a very
thin film of water—water that seemed to cling there by
some strange magic—were horrible, David thought.
Sakewawin! A pretty name for himself, he had told
the girl—and here it was raising the very devil with
this drink-bloated Colossus. He guessed quickly. It
was decidedly a matter of guessing quickly and of
making prompt and satisfactory explanation—or a
throttling where he stood. His mind worked like a
racehorse. Sakewawin meant something that had en-
raged Brokaw. A jealous rage. A rage that had filled
his aqueous eyes with a lurid glare. So David said,
looking into them calmly, and with a little feigned
surprise :

““Wasn’t she speaking to you, Brokaw?”

It was a splendid shot. David scarcely knew why
he made it, except that he was moved by a powerful
impulse which just now he had no time to analyse. It
was this same impulse that had kept him from revealing
himself when Brokaw had mistaken him for someone
else. Chance had thrown a course of action into his

229

" se Nea ella 2 hl lg eee Re eS TS eines =
ca a pean IS i a

ds ac OST ER it gloat 56 La TS itis diac Bad MASSE eae ee —

Bieesae le siry certs. opetger rhe pie irate

The Girl Beyond the Trail

way, and he had accepted it almost involuntarily. I
had suddenly occurred to him that he would give muc!
to be alone with this half-drunken man for a few hours-
as McKenna. He might last long enough in that dis
guise to discover things. But not with Hauck watch
ing him, for Hauck was four-fifths sober, and there wa:
a depth to his cruel eyes which he did not like. He
watched the effect of his words on Brokaw. The tense.
ness left his body, his hands unclenched slowly, hi:
heavy jaw relaxed—and David laughed softly. t
that he was out of deep water now. This fello\ if
filled with drink, was wonderfully credu!o:. And he
was sure that his watery eyes could not see very well,
though his ears had heard distinctly.

“She was looking at you, Brokaw—straight at you
when she said good night,” he added.

“You sure—sure she said it to me, Mac?”

David nodded, even as his blood ran a little cold.

A leering grin of joy spread over Brokaw’s face.

“The—the little devil!” he gloated.

“What does it mean?” David asked. “Sakewawin 2
I’ve never heard it.” He lied calmly, turning his head
a bit out of the light.

Brokaw stared at him a moment before answering.

“When a girl says that—it means—she belongs to
you,” he said. “In Indian it means—possession. Dam’
—of course you’re right! She said it to me. She’s
mine. She belongs to me. I own her. And I
thought——”

He caught up the bottle and turned out half a glass
of liquor, swaying unsteadily.

“Drink, Mac?”

David shook his head.

230

rily. It
ve much
hours—
that dis-
< watch-
lere Was
ce. He
ie tense-
vly, his
Fe, 't
) af
And he
ry well,

at you

cold.
‘ace.

wawin ?

is head

ring.

mgs to
Dam’
She’s

And I

a glass

Brokaw is Communicative

“Not now. Let’s go to your shack if you’ve got one.
Lots to talk about—old times—Kicking Horse, you
know. And this girl? I can’t believe it! If it’s true,
you're a lucky dog.”

He was not thinking of consequences—of to-morrow.
To-night was all he asked for—alone with Brokaw.
That mountain of flesh, stupefied with liquor, was no
match for him now. To-morrow he might hold the whip
hand, if Hauck did not return too soon. Lucky dog!
Lucky dog! He kept repeating that. It was like music
in Brokaw’s ears. And such a girl! An angel! He
couldn’t believe it! Brokaw’'s face was like a red fire
in his exultation, his lustful joy, his great triumph. He
drank the liquor he had proffered David, and drank a
second time, rumbling in his thick chest like some kind
of animal. Of course she was an angel! Hadn’t he
and Hauck and that woman who had died made her
grow into an angel—just for him? She belonged to
him. Always had belonged to him, and he had waited
along time. If she had ever called any other man that
name—Sakewawin—he would have killed him. Certain.
Killed him dead. This was the first time she had ever
called him that. Lucky dog? You bet he was. They'd
go to his shack—and talk. He drank a third time. He
rolled heavily as they entered the hall, David praying
that they would not meet Hauck. He had his victim.
He was sure of him. And the hall was empty. He
picked up his gun and pack, and held to Brokaw’s arm
as they went out into the night. Brokaw staggered
guidingly into a wall of darkness, talking thickly about
lucky dogs. They had gone perhaps a hundred paces
when he stopped suddenly, very close to something that
looked to David like a section of tall fence built out of

231

The Girl Beyond the Trail

small trees. It was the cage. He jumped at that con-
clusion before he could see it very clearly in the clouded
starlight. From it there came a growling rumble, a
deep breath that was like air expelling itself from a
bellows, and he saw faintly a huge, motionless shape
beyond the stripped and upright sapling trunks.

“Grizzly,” said Brokaw, trying to keep himself on
an even balance. “Big bear fight to-morrow, Mac. My
bear—her bear—great fight! Everybody come in to
see it. Nothing like a bear fight, eh? S’prise her,
won’t it—pretty little wench !—when she sees her bear
fighting mine? Betchu hundred dollars my bear kills
Tara!”

“To-morrow,” said David. “I'll bet to-morrow.
Where’s the shack?”

He was anxious to reach that, and he hoped it was
a good distance away. He feared every moment that
he would hear Hauck’s voice, or his footsteps behind
them, and he knew that Hauck’s presence would spoil
everything. Brokaw, in his cups, was talkative—
almost garrulous. Already he had explained the
mystery of the cage and the presence of the Indians.
The big fight was to take place in the cage, and the
Indians had come in to see it. He found himself
wondering, as they went through the darkness, how it
had all been kept from the girl, and why Brokaw should
deliberately lower himself still more in her esteem by
allowing the combat. He asked him about it when
they entered the shack to which Brokaw guided
him, and after they had lighted a lamp. It was a
small, gloomy, whisky-smelling place. Brokaw went
directly to a hox nailed against the wall and returned
with a quart flask that resembled an army canteen, and

232

sh saa sig aan ena ab the bx eat ke Sages acca narwnanes ond Oot oe

Ae hi aie a Lait Beane 8c eget

Brokaw is Communicative

two tin cups. He sat down at a small table, his bloated
red face in the light of the lamp, that queer animal-
like rumbling in his throat as he turned out the liquor.
David had heard porcupines make something like the
same sound. He pulled his hat lower over his eyes to
hide the gleam of them as Brokaw told him what he
and Hauck had planned. The bear in the cage be-
longed to him—Brokaw. A big brute. Fierce. A
fighter. Hauck and he were going to bet on his bear
because it would surely kill Tara. Make a big clean-up,
they would. Tara was soft. Too easy living. And
they needed money because those scoundrels over on
the coast had failed to get in enough whisky for their
trade. The girl had almost spoiled their plans by
going away with Tara. And he—Mac—was a devil of
a good fellow for bringing her back ! They’d pull off
the fight to-morrow. If the girl—that little bird-devil
that belonged to him—didn’t like it——

He brought the canteen down with a bang, and
shoved one of the cups across to David.

“Of course, she belongs to you,” encouraged David.
“But, confound you, I can’t believe it, you old dog!
I can’t believe it! He leaned over and gave Brokaw
a jocular slap, forcing a laugh out of himself. “She’s
too pretty for you. Prettiest kid I ever saw! How did
it happen? Eh? You—lucky—dog !”

He was fairly trembling as he saw that red fire of
great satisfaction, of gloating pleasure, deepen in
Brokaw’s face.

“She hasn’t belonged to you very long, eh?”

“Long time, long time,” replied Brokaw, pausing
with his cup half-way to his mouth. “Years ago.”

Suddenly he lowered the cup so forcefully that half

233

The Girl Beyond the Trail

the liquor in it was spilled over the table. He thrust
his huge shoulders and red face toward David, and in
an instant there was a snarl on his thick lips.

“Hauck said she didn’t,” he growled. “What do
you think of that, Mac ?—said she didn’t belong to me
any more, an’ I’d have to pay for her keep! Gawd, I
did. I gave him a lot of gold!”

“You were a fool,” said David. trying to choke back
his eagerness. “A fool!”

“T should have killed him, shouldn’t I, Mac—killed
him an’ took her?” cried Brokaw huskily, his passion
rising as he knotted his huge fists on the table. “ Killed
him like you killed the Breed for that long-haired she-
devil over at Copper Cliff!”

“‘I—don’t—know,” said David slowly, praying that
he would not say the wrong thing now. “I don’t know
what claim you had on her, Brokaw. If I knew——”

He waited. Brokaw did not seem altogether like a
drunken man now, and for a moment he feared that dis-
covery had come. He leaned over the table. The
watery film seemed to drop from his eyes for an instant
and his teeth gleamed wolfishly. David was glad the
lamp chimney was black with soot, and that the rim of
his hat shadowed his face, for it seemed to him that
Brokaw’s vision had grown suddenly better.

“T should have killed him, an’ took her,” repeated
Brokaw, his voice heavy with passion. “I should have
had her long ago, but Hauck’s woman kept her from

me. She’s been mine all along, ever since——” His
mind seemed to lag. He drew his hulking shoulders
back slowly. “But I’ll have her to-morrow,” he

mumbled, as if he had suddenly forgotten David and
was talking to himself. “To-morrow. Next day we'll
234

thrust
and in

hat do
- to me
awd, I

ce back

—killed
yassion

Brokaw is Communicative

Start north. Hauck can’t say anything now. I’ve paid
him. She’s mine—mine now—to-night! By——”

David shuddered at what he saw in the brute’s re-
volting face. It was the dawning of a sudden terrible
idea. To-night! It blazed there in his eyes, grown
watery again. Quickly David turned out more liquor,
and thrust one of the cups into Brokaw’s hand. The
giant drank. His body sank into piggish laxness. For
a moment the danger was past. David knew that time
was precious. He must force his hand.

“And if Hauck troubles you,” he cried, striking the
table a blow with his fist, “I'll help you settle for him,
Broka -! I'll do it for old time’s sake. I'll do to him
what I did to the Breed. The girl’s yours. She’s be-
longed to you for a long time, eh? Tell me about it,
Brokaw—tell me before Hauck comes! ”

Could he never make that bloated fiend tell him
what he wanted to know? Brokaw stared at him
stupidly, and then all at once he started, as if someone
had pricked him into consciousness, and a slow grin
began to spread over his face. It was a reminiscent,
horrible sort of leer—not a smile; the expression of a
man who gloats over a revolting and unspeakable
thing.

““She’s mine—been mine ever since she was a baby,”
he confided, leaning again over the table. “Good friend
give her to me, Mac—good friend but a dam’ fool!”
He chuckled. He rubbed his huge hands together—
turned out more liquor. ‘‘ Dam’ fool!” he repeated.
“Any man’s a dam’ fool to turn down a pretty woman,
eh, Mac? An’ she was pretty, he says. My girl’s
mother, you know, so she must have been pretty. It
was off there—in the bush country—years ago. The kid

si 235

The Girl Beyond the Trail

you brought in to-day was a baby then—alone with her
mother. Ho, ho, deuced easy—deuced easy! But he
was . dam’ fool!”

He drank with incredible slowness, it seemed to
David. It was torture to watch him, with the fear that
Hauck would come every instant.

“What happened ?” he urged.

“Bucky—my friend—in love with that woman,
O’Doone’s wife,” resumed Brokaw. ‘“ Dead crazy, Mac.
Crazier ’n you were over the Breed’s woman, only he
didn’t have the nerve. Just moned around—waiting—
keeping out of O’Doone’s way. Trapper, O’Doone was
—or a Company runner. Forgot which. Anyway he
went on a long trip, in winter, and got laid up with a
broken leg long way from home. Wife and baby alone,
an’ Bucky sneaked up one day and found the woman
sick with fever. Out of her head! Dead out, Bucky
says—an’ my Gawd! if she didn’t think he was her
husband come back! That easy, Mac—an’ he lacked
the nerve! Crazy in love with her, he was, an’ he didn’t
dare play the part. ‘Told me it was conscience. Bah!
it wasn’t. He was afraid. Scared. A fool. Then he
said the fever must have touched him. Ho, ho, it was
funny. He was a scared fool. Wish I’d have been
there, Mac—wish I had!”

His eyes half closed, gleaming in narrow, shining
slits. His chin dropped on his chest. David prodded
him on.

“And then—what happened ?” he asked.

“Bucky got her to run away with him,” continued
Brokaw, “her and the kid, while she was still out of her
head. Bucky even got her to write a note, he said,
telling O’Doone she was sick of him an’ was running

236

1 her
it he

d to
that

man,
Mac.
y he
ng—
: was
y he
ith a
lone,
yman
ucky
; her
icked
idn’t
Bah |
n he
- was
been

ining

ded

inued
yf her
said,
ining

Brokaw is Communicative

away with another man. Bucky didn’t give his own
name, of course. An’ the woman didn’t know what she
was doing. They started west, with the kid, and all the
time Bucky was afraid! He dragged the woman on a
sledge, and snow covered their trail. He hid ir a cabin
a hundred miles from O’Doone’s, an’ it was there the
woman come to her senses. Gawd, it must have been
exciting! Bucky says she was like a mad woman, and
that she ran screeching out into the night, leaving the
kid with him. He followed, but he couldn’t find her.
He waited, but she never came back. A snowstorm
covered her trail. Then Bucky says he went mad—the
fool! He waited till spring, keeping that kid, and then
he made up his mind to get it back to Papa O’Doone in
some way. He sneaked back to where the cabin had
been, and found nothing but char there. It nad been
burned. Oh, the devil, but it was funny! And after
all this trouble he hadn’t dared to take O’Doone’s place
with the woman. Conscience? Bah! He was a fool.
You don’t get a pretty woman like that very often, eh,
Mac?”

Unsteadily he tilted the flask to turn himself out
another drink. His voice was thickening. David re-
joiced when he saw that the flask was empty.

“Dam’!” said Brokaw, shaking it.

“Go on,” insisted David. “You haven’t told me
how you came by the girl, Brokaw?”

The watery film was growing thicker over Brokaw’s
eyes. He brought himself back to his Story with an
apparent effort.

“Came west, Bucky did—with the kid,” he went on.
“Struck my cabin, on the Mackenzie, a year later. Told
me all about it. Then one day he sneaked away and

237

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Po att cease nmin RNR RMR RMR: ete.

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aensreterycecerabts teer-sarementersstter on

The Girl Beyond the Trail

left her with me, begging me to put her where she'd
be safe. I did. Gave her to Hauck’s woman, and told
her Bucky’s story. Later Hauck came over here. Built
this place. Three years ago I come down from the
Yukon, and saw the kid. Pretty? Gawd, she was !
Almost a woman. And she was mine. I told ’em so.
Mebby the woman would have cheated me, but I had
Hauck on the hip because I saw him kill a man when
he was drunk—a white man from MacPherson. Helped
him hide the body. And then—oh, it was funny !—I
ran across Bucky! He was living in a shack a dozen
miles from here, an’ he didn’t know Marge was the
O’Doone baby. I told him a big lie—told nim the kid
died, an’ that I’d heard the woman had killed herself,
and that O’Doone was in a lunatic asylum. Mebby he
did have a conscience, the fool! Guess he v 2s a little
crazy himself. Went away soon after that. Never
heard of him since. An’ I’ve been hanging round until
the girl was old enough to live with a man. Ain't I
done right, Mac? Don’t she belong to me? An’
to-morrow——”’

His head rolled. He recovered himself with an
effort, and leaned heavily against the table. His face
was almost barren of human expression. It was the
face of a monster, unlighted by reason, stripped of mind
and soul. And David, glaring into it across the table,
questioned him once more, even as he heard the
crunch of footsteps outside, and knew that Hauck was
coming—coming in all probability to unmask him in the
part he had played.

But Hauck was too late. He was ready to fight
now, and as he held himself prepared for the struggle
he asked that last question.

238

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Brokaw is Communicative

“And this man—Bucky—what was his other name,
Brokaw ?”

Brokaw’s thick lips moved, and then came his voice,
in a husky whisper :

“Tavish !”

Cage gana

LEO TEEN ng RON PES TATTLE STAN RNR ATTEMOT ARETE ENC URETHRA, OEE RS

tae

239

CHAPTER XXII

DAVID IS CONDEMNED

T1E nexc instant Hauck was in the open door. He did
not cross the threshold at once, but stood there for per-
haps twenty seconds, his grey, hard face looking in on
them with eyes in which there was a cold and sinister
glitter. Brokaw, with the fumes of liquor thick in his
brain, tried to nod an invitation for him to enter; his
head rolled grotesquely and his voice was a croak.
David rose slowly to his feet, thrusting back his chair,
anu from Brokaw’s sagging body Hauck’s eyes were
levelled at him. And then his lips parted. One would
not have called it a smile. It revealed to David a deadly
animosity which the man was trying to hide under
the disguise of that grin, and he knew that Hauck
had discovered that he was not McKenna. Swiftly
David shot a glance at Brokaw. The giant's
head and shoulders lay on the table, and he made
a sudden daring effort to save a little more time for
himself.

“Tm sorry,” he said. ‘“He’s terribly drunk.”

Hauck nodded his head—he kept nodding it, that
cold glitter in his eyes, the steady, insinuating grin still
there.

“Yes, he’s drunk,” he said, his voice hard as rock.
“Better come to the house. I’ve got a room for you.
There’s only one bunk in here—McKenna.”

He dragged out the name slowly, a bit tauntingly it

240

He did
lor per-
y in on
sinister
in his
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croak.
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; rock.
r you.

igly it

David is Condemned

seemed to David. And David laughed. Might as well
play his last card well, he thought.

“My name isn’t McKenna,” he said. “It’s David
Raine. He made a mistake, and he’s so drunk I
haven’t been able to explain.”

Without answering, Hauck backed out of the door.
It was an invitation for David to follow. Again he
carried his pack and gun with him through the dark-
ness, and Hauck uttered not a word as they returned to
The Nest. The night was brighter now, and David
could see Baree close at his heels, followiig him as
silently as a shadow. The dog slunk out of sight when
they came to the building. They did not enter from the
rear this time. Hauck led the way to a door that opened
into the big room from which had come the sound of
cursing and laughter a little while before. The-s were
ten or a dozen men in that room, all white men—and
upon entering David was moved by a sudden suspicion
that they were expecting him, that Hauck had prepared
them for his appearance. There was no liquor in sight.
If there had been bottles and glasses on the tables they
had been cleared away, but no one had thought to wipe
away certain liquid stains that David saw shimmering
wetly in the glow of the three big lamps hanging from
the ceiling. He looked the men over quickly as he
followed the free trader. Never, he thought, had he
seen a rougher or more unpleasant-looking lot. He
caught more than one eye filled with the glittering
menace he had seen in Hauck’s. Not a man nodded at
him, or spoke to him. He passed close to one raw-
boned individual, so close that he brushed against him,
and there was an unconcealed and threatening animosity
in this man’s face as he glared up at him. By the time

241

The Gir! Beyond the Trail

he had passed through the room his suspicion had
become a conviction. Hauck had purposely put him on
parade, and there was a deep and sinister significance in
the attitude of these men.

They passed through the hall into which he and
Marge had entered from the opposite side of The Nest,
and Hauck paused at the door of a room almost opposite
the one which the girl had said belonged to her.

“This will be your room while you are our guest,”
he said. The glitter in his eyes softened as he nodded
at David. He tried to speak a bit affably, but David
felt that his effort was rather unsuccessful. It failed
to cover the hard note in his voice, or the curious twitch
of his upper lip—a snarl almost—as he forced a smile.
“Make yourself at home,” he added. “We'll have
breakfast in the morning with my niece.” He paused
for a moinent, and then said, looking keenly at David:
“I suppose you tried hard to make Brokaw understand
he had made a mistake—and that you wasn’t McKenna?
Brokaw is a good fellow when he isn’t drunk.”

Davic as glad that he turned away without waiting
for an -: swer. He did not want to talk with Hauck
to-night. He wanted to turn over in his mind what he
had learned from Brokaw, and to-morrow act with the
cool and careful judgment which was more or less
characteristic of him. He did not believe even now that
there would be anything melodramatic in the outcome
of the affair. There would be an unpleasantness, of
course; but when both Hauck and Brokaw were con-
fronted with a certain situation, and with the peculiarly
significant facts which he now held in his possession, he
could not see how they would be able to place any very
great obstacle in the way of his determination to take

242

n had
him on
ince in

le and
: Nest,
posite

Zuest,”
10dded
David

failed
twitch
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| have
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avid :
rstand
enna ?

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o take

David is Condemned

Marge from The Nest. He did not think of personal
harm to himself, and as he entered his room, where a
lamp had been lighted for him, his mind had already
begun to work on a plan of action. He would com-
promise with them. In return for the loss of the girl
they should have his promise—his oath, if necessary—
not to reveal the secret of the traffic in which they were
engaged, or of that still more important affair between
Hauck and the white man from Fort MacPherson. He
was certain that in his drunkenness Brokaw had spoken
the truth, no matter what he might deny to-morrow.
They would not hazard an investigation, though to lose
the girl now, at the very moment of his exultant realisa-
tion, would be like taking the earth out from under
Brokaw’s feet. In spite of the tenseness of the situation
David found himself chuckling with satisfaction. It
would be unpleasant, very—he repeated that assurance
to himself; but that self-preservation would be the first
law of these rascals he was equally positive, and he
began thinking of other things that just now were of
more thrilling import to him.

It was Tavish then—that half-mad hermit in his
mice-infested cabin—who had been at the bottom of it
all! Tavish! The discovery did not amaze him pro-
foundly. He had never been able to disassociate Tavish
from the picture, unreasoning though he confessed him-
self to be, and now that his mildly impossible conjec-
tures had suddenly developed into facts he was not
excited. It was another thought—or other thoughts—
that stirred him more deeply, and brought a heat into
his blood. His mind leapt back to that scene of years
ago, when Marge O’Doone’s mother had run shrieking
out in the storm of night to escape Tavish, even

243

The Girl Beyond the Trail

leaving her baby girl in her madness and terror.
Tavish believed that she had died. But she had
not died! That was the thought that burned in David’s
brain now. She had lived. She had searched for her
husband—Michael O’Doone, a half-mad wanderer of
the forests at first it may have been. She had searched
for years. And she was still searching for him when he
met her that night on the Transcontinental! For it
was she—Marge O’Doone, the mother, the wife, inte
whose dark, haunting eyes he had gazed from out of the
sunless depths of his own despair! Her mother.
Alive. Seeking a Michael O’Doone—seecking—seek-
Inge

He was filled with a great desire to go at once to the
girl and tell her of this wonderful new fact that had
come into her life, and he found himself suddenly at
the door of his room, with his fingers on the latch.
Standing there, he shrugged his shoulders, laughing
Softly at himself as he realised how absurdly sensational
he was becoming all at once. To-morrow would be
time. He filled and lighted his pipe, and in the whitish
fumes of his tobacco he could picture quite easily the
grey, dead face of Tavish hanging at the end of his
meat-rack. Pacing restlessly back and forth across | s
room he recalled the scenes of that night, and of days
and nights that followed. Brokaw had given him thie
key that was unlocking door after door. “Guess he was
a little crazy,” Brokaw had said, speaking of Tavish as
he had last known him on the Firepan. C razy! Going
mad! And at last he had killed himself. Was it
possible that a man of Tavish’s sort could be haunted
for so long by spectres of the past? It seemed un-
reasonable. And yet—— He thought of Father

244

terror.
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Aa ls

David is Condemned

Roland, of the mysterious change that came over him
that night of Tavish’s death, of the mystery-room in
The Chateau where he worshipped at the shrine of a
woman and a child who were gone, of—— He clenched
his hands, and stopped himself. What had leapt into
his mind was as startling to his inner consciousness as
the unexpected flash of magnesium in a dark room. It
was unthinkable—impossible; and yet following it he
found himself face to face with question after question
which he made no effort to answer. He was dazed for
a moment as if by the terrific impact of a thing which
had neither weig®t nor form. Tavish, the woman, the
girl—Father Roland! Absurd. He shook himself,
literally shook himself to get that wildly im oossible idea
out of him. He drove his mind back to the photograph
of the girl—and the wome». How had she come into
possession of the picture which Brokaw had taken?
What had Nisikoos tried to say to Marge O’Doone ir
those last moments when she was dying—whispered
worcs which the girl had not heard because she was
crying, and her }-art was breaking? Did Nisikoos
know that the mo ter was alive? Had she sent the
picture to he; whe: she realised that the end of her own
time was Jrawing near? There was something un-
reasonayle in this too, but it was the only solution that
came tc him.
fe was still pacing his room when the creaking of

the deor stopped him. It was opening slowly and
‘eadily and apparently with extreme caution, Ir
another moment Marge O’Doone stood inside. He
not seen her face so white before. Her eyes were
and ‘owing darkly—pools of quivering fear, of

ad: npioring supplication. She ran to him, and cli

245

sorore qunssenaey sow vanes satreiibaoremec S

ecaettenaine brdeae eter serene ot fy ey

The Girl Beyond the Trail

to him with her hands at his Shoulders, her face close
to his.

“Sakewawin—dear Sakewawin—we must go—we
must hurry—to-night——”

She was trembling, fairly shivering against him with
one hand touching his face now, and he put his arms
about her gently.

“What is it, child?” he whispered, his heart
choking him suddenly. “What has happened ?”

“We must run away! We must hurry!”

At the touch of his arms she had relaxed against his
breast. The last of her courage seemed gone. She
was limp, and terrified, and was looking up at him in
such a strange way that he was filled with alarm.

“TI didn’t tell him anything,” she whispered, as if
afraid he would not believe her. “I didn’t tell him you
weren’t that man—Mac—McKenna. He heard you
and Brokaw go when you passed my room. Then he
went to the men. I followed—and listened. I heard
him telling them about you—that you were a spy—
that you belonged to the provincial police——”

A sound in the hall interrupted her. She grew
suddenly tense in his arms, then slipped from them and
ran noiselessly to the door. There were shuffling steps
outside, a thick voice growling unintelligibly. The
Sounds passed. Marge O’Doone was whiter still when
she faced David.

“Hauck—and Brokaw!” She stood there, with her
back to the door. “We must hurry, Sakewawin. We
must go—to-night !”

His alarm had passed. He had feared for a moment
something more ominous than whatever Hauck might
have said to his men. A spy? Police? Quite the

246

David is Condemned

first thing for Hauck to suspect, of course. That law
of self-preservation again—the same law that would
compel them to give up the girl to him to-morrow. He
found himself smiling at his frightened little companion,
backed there against the door, white as death. His
calmness did not reassure her.

“He said—you were a spy,” she repeated, as if he
must understand what that meant. “They wanted to
follow you to Brokaw’s cabin—and—and—kill you!”

This was coming to the bottom of her fear with a
vengeance. It sent a mild sort of shiver through him,
and corroborated with rather disturbing emphasis what
he had seen in the men’s faces as he had passed
among them.

“And Hauck wouldn’t let them? Was that it?” he
asked.

She nodded, clutching a hand at her throat.

“He told them to do nothing until he saw Brokaw.
He wanted to be certain. And then——”

His amazing and smiling composure in the face of
this thing that was filling her own heart with a new
terror seemed to choke back the words on her lips.

“You must return to your room, Marge,” he spoke
quickly. ‘Hauck has now seen Brokaw, and there will
be no trouble such as you fear. I can promise you
that. To-morrow we will leave The Nest openly—and
with Hauck’s and Brokaw’s permission. But should
they find you here now—in my room—I am quite sure
we would have immediate trouble on our hands. I’ve
a great deal to tell you, much that will make you glad,
but I half expect another visit from Hauck, and you
must hurry to your room.”

He opened the door slightly, and listened.

247

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eo BER IO TT TIE na ra erent -

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if
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The Girl Beyond the Trail

“Good night,” he whispered, putting a hand for an
instant to her hair.

“Good night, Sakewawin.”

She hesitated for just a moment in the door, and
then with the faintest sobbing breath was gone. What
wonderful eyes she had! How they had looked at him
in that last moment! David’s fingers were trembling
a little as he locked his door. There was a small mirror
on the table and he held it up to look at himself. He
regarded his reflection with grim amusement. He was
not beautiful. The scrub of blond beard on his face
gave him rather an outlawish appearance. And the
grey hair over his temples had grown quite conspicuous
of late, quite conspicuous indeed. Heredity? Perhaps
—but it was confoundedly remindful of the fact that he
was thirty-eight !

He went to bed, after placing the table against the
door, and his automatic under his pillow—absurdly un-
necessary details of caution he assured himself. And
while Marge O’Doone sat awake close to the door of her
room all that night, with a little rifle that had belonged
to Nisikoos across her lap, David slept soundly in the
amazing confidence and philosophy of that perilous age
thirty-eight !

248

yan

CHAPTER XXIII

BROKAW’S CHALLENGE

A SERIES of sounds that came to him at first like the
booming of distant cannon roused David from his
Slumber. He awoke to find broad day in his room, and
a knocking at his door. He began to dress, calling out
that he would open it in a moment, and he was careful
to place the automatic in his pocket before he lifted the
table, without a sound, to its former position in the
room. When he flung open the door he was sur-
prised to find Brokaw standing there instead of Hauck.
It was not the Brokaw of last night. A few hours had
produced a remarkable change in the man. One would
not have thought that he had been recently drunk. He
was grinning and holding out one of his huge hands as
he looked into David's face.

“Morning, Raine,” he greeted affably. “Hauck sent
me to wake you up for the fun. You've got just time to
swallow your breakfast before we put on the big scrap—
the scrap I told you about last night, when I was
drunk. Head over heels drunk, wasn’t I? Took you
for a friend I knew. Funny. You don’t look a dam’
bit like him!”

David shook hands with him. In his first astonish-
ment Brokaw’s manner appeared to him to be quite
sincere, and his voice to be filled with apology. This
impression was gone before he had dropped his hand,

@ and he knew why Hauck’s partner had come. It was

249

The Girl Beyond the Trail

to get a good look at him—to make sure that he was
not McKenna; and it was also with the strategic pur-
pose of removing whatever suspicions David might have
by an outward show of friendship. For this last bit of
work Brokaw was crudely out of place. His eyes, like
a bad dog’s, could not conceal what lay behind them—
hatred, a deep and intense desire to grip his hands at
the throat of this man who had tricked him; and his
grin was forced, with a subdued sort of malevolence
about it.

David smiled back.

“You were drunk,” he said. “I had a deuce of a
time trying to make you understand that I wasn’t
McKenna.”

That amazing lie seemed for a moment to daze
Brokaw. David realised the audacity of it, and knew
that Brokaw would remember too well what had hap-
pened to believe him. Its effect was what he was after,
and if he had had a doubt as to the motive of the other’s
visit that doubt disappeared almost as quickly as he had
spoken. The grin went out of Brokaw’s face, his jaws
tightened, the red came nearer to the surface in
nis bloodshot eyes. As plainly as if he was giving
voice to his thought he was saying ‘You lie!”
But he kept back the words, and as David noted care-
lessly the slow clenching and unclenching of his hands
he believed that Hauck was not very far away, and that
it was his warning, and the fact that he was possibly
listening to them, that restrained Brokaw from betraying
himself completely. As it was, the grin returned slowly
into his face.

“Hauck says he’s sorry he couldn’t have breakfast
with you,” he said. “Couldn't wait any longer. The

250

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The

Brokaw’s Challenge

Indian’s going to bring your breakfast here. You'd
better hurry if you want to see the fun.”

With this he turned and walked heavily toward the
end of the hall. David glanced across at the door to
Marge’s room. It was closed. Then he looked at his
watch. It was almost nine o’clock! He felt like swear-
ing as he thought of what he had missed—that break-
fast with Hauck and the girl. He would undoubtedly
have had an opportunity of seeing Hauck alone for a
little while—a quarter of an hour would have been
enough; or he could have settled the whole matter in
Marge’s presence. He wondered where she was now.
In her room ?

Approaching footsteps caused him to draw back deeper
into his own, and a moment later his promised breakfast
appeared, carried by an old Indian woman on a big
Company keyakun—undoubtedly the woman Marge had
told him about. She placed the huge plate on his table
and withdrew without either looking at him or uttering
a sound. He ate hurriedly, and finished dressing him-
Self after that. It was a quarter after nine when he
went into the hall. In passing Marge’s door he
knocked. There came no esponse from within. He
turned and passed through the big room in which he
had seen so many unfriendly faces the night before. It
was empty now. The stillness of the place began to
fill him with uneasiness, and he hurried out into the
day. Alow tumult of sound wasin the air, unintelligible
and yet thrilling. A dozen steps brought him to the
end of the building, and he looked toward the cage.
For a space after that he stood without moving, filled
with a sudden sickening horror as he realised his help-
lessness in this moment. If he had not over-slept, if he

Q 251

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

had talked with Hauck, he might have prevented this
monstrous thing that was happening—he might have
demanded that Tara be a part of their bargain. It was
too late now. An excited and yet strangely quiet crowd
was gathered about the cage—a crowd so tense and
motionless that he knew the battle was on. A low,
growling roar came to him, and again he heard that
tumult of human voice, like a great gasp rising spon-
taneously out of half a hundred throats, and in response
to the sound he gave a sudden cry of rage. Tara was
already battling for his life—Tara, that great, big-souled
brute who had learned to follow his little mistress like a
protecting dog, and who had accepted him as a friend—
Tara, grown soft and lazy and unwarlike because of his
voluntary slavedom, had been offered to the sacrifice
which Brokaw had told him was inevitable! And the
girl! Where was she? He was unconscious of the
fact that his hand was gripping hard at the automatic in
his pocket. For a space his brain burned red, seething
with a physical passion, a consuming anger, which in
all his life had never been roused so terrifically within
him. He rushed forward and took his place in the thin
circle of watching men. He did not look at their faces.
He did not know whether he stood next to white men
or Indians. He did not see the blaze in their eyes, the
joyous trembling of their bodies, their silent, savage
exultation in the spectacle.

He was looking at the cage.

It was twenty feet square, built of small trees almost
a foot in diameter, with eighteen-inch spaces between,
and out of it came a sickening, grinding smash of jaws.
The two beasts were down, a ton of flesh and bone in
what seemed to him to be a death embrace. For 4

252

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For a

Brokaw’s Challenge

there rolled a tumbling, snarl-
ing roar that was like the deep-chested bellow of an
angry bull. With that roar they came together again,
Tara waiting Stolidly and with panting sides for the
rush of his enemy. It was hard for David to see what
was happening in that twisting contortion of huge

bodies, but as they rolled heavily to one side he saw a
great red splash o

looked as if someone
Suddenly a hand

round. Brokaw was |
“Great scrap, eh?”

There was a look in his red face that revealed the
Pitiless Savagery of a cat. David’s clenched hand was
as hard as iron, and his brain was filled with a wild
desire to strike. He fought to hold himself in.

“Where is—the girl?” he demanded.

Brokaw’s face revealed his hatred now, the taunting
triumph of his Power over this man who was a Spy.
He bared his yellow teeth in an exultant grin.

“Tricked her,” he snarled. “Tricked her—like you
tricked me! Got the Indian woman to steal her clothes,
an’ she’s up there in her room—alone—and naked!
And she won’t have any clothes until I Say so, for she’s
mine—body and soul—_”

David’s clenched hand shot out, and in his blow
was not alone the cumulative

force of all his years of
training, but also of the one great impulse he had ever
253

so eee

pe ae menace en cme te See
aii ones vec Scene mapunenT Ia ANDRA SADE IIT

The Girl Beyond the Trail

had to kill. In that instant he wanted to strike a man
dead—a red-visaged monster, a fiend; and his blow sent
Brokaw’s huge body reeling backward, his head twisted
as if his neck had been broken. He had no time to see
what happened after that blow. He did not see Brokaw
fall. A piercing interruption—a scream that startled
every drop of blood in his body, turned him toward the
cage with an answering, gasping Cry. Ten paces from
him, standing at the inner edge of that astounded and
petrified circle of men, was the girl! His blood, a
moment before like hot fire, seemed to freeze in his
veins. At first he thought she was standing naked
there—naked under the staring eyes of the fiends about
him. Her white arms gleamed bare, her shoulders and
breast were bare, her slim, satiny body was naked to
the waist, about which she had drawn tightly—as if in a
wild panic of haste—an old and ragged skirt! It was
the Indian woman’s skirt. He caught the glitter of
beads on it, and for a moment he stared with the others,
unable to move or cry out her name. And then a
breath of wind flung back her hair and he saw her face
the colour of marble. In that thrilling space she was
like a piece of glistening statuary, without a quiver of
life that his eyes could see, without a movement, with-
out a breath. Only her hair moved, stirred by the aif,
flooded by the sun, floating about her shoulders and
down her »:re back in a lucent cloud of red and gold
fires—and out of this she was staring at the cage,
stunned into that lifeless and unbreathing posture of
horror by what she saw. David did not follow her eyes.
He heard the growl and roar and clashing jaws of the
fighting beasts; they were down again; one of the SiX-
inch trees that formed the bars of the cage snapped
254

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Brokaw’s Challenge

like a walking-stick as their great bodies lurched against
it, the earth shook, the very air seemed a-tremble with
the terrific force of the struggle—and only the girl was
looking at that struggle. Every eye was on her now,
and David sprang suddenly forth from the circle of men,
calling her name.

Ten paces separated them; half that distance lay
between the girl and the cage. With the swiftness of
an arrow sprung from the bow she had leapt into life
and crossed that space. The loss of a tenth part of a
second and David would have been at her side. He
was that tenth of a second too late. A gleaming
shaft she had passed between the bars, and a tumult
of horrified voice rose suddenly above the roar of
battle as the girl sprang at the beasts with her naked
hands.

Her voice came to David in a scream.

“Tara—Tara—Tara——”

His brain reeled when he saw her down—down!
with her little fists pummelling at a great shaggy head,
and in him there was the sickening weakness of a
drunken man as he squeezed through that eighteen-inch
aperture and almost fell at her side. He did not know
that he had drawn his automatic; he scarcely realised
that as fast as his finger could press the trigger he was
firing shot after shot, with the muzzle of his pistol so
close to the head of Tara’s enemy that the reports of the
weapon were deadened as if muffled under a thick
blanket. It was a heavy gun. A stream of lead burned
its way into the grizzly’s brain. There were eleven
shots, and he fired them all in that wild, blood-red
frenzy, and when he stood up he had the girl close in
his arms, her naked breast throbbing pantingly against

255

The Girl Beyond the Trail

him. The clasp of his hands against her warm flesh
cleared his head, and while Tara was rending at the
throat of his dying foe David drew her swiftly out of
the cage and flung about her the light jacket he had
worn.

“Go to your room,” he said. “Tara is safe. I will
see that no harm comes to him now.”

The cordon of men separated for them as he led her
through. The crowd was so silent that they could hear
Tara’s low throat-growling. And then, breaking that
silence in a savage cry, came Brokaw's voice.

“ Stop ! ”

He faced them, huge, terrible, quivering with rage.
A step behind him was Hauck, and there was no longer
in his face an effort to conceal his murderous intentions ;
and close behind Hauck there gathered quickly his
white-faced whisky-mongers like a pack of wolves wait-
ing for a lead-cry. David expected that cry to come
from Brokaw. The girl expected it, and she clung with
her arms at David’s shoulders, her bloodless face turned
to the danger.

It was Brokaw who gave the signal to the men.

“Clear out the cage!” he bellowed. “This damned
spy has killed my bear and he’s got to fight me! Do
you understand? Clear out the cage!”

He thrust his head and bull-shoulders forward until
his foul, hot breath touched their faces, and his red
neck was swollen with the passion of his jealousy and
hatred like the neck of a cobra.

_ “And in that fight—I’m going to kill you!” he
hissed.

It was Hauck who put his hands on the girl.

“Go with him,” whispered David as her arms tight-

256

ght-

Brokaw’s Challenge

ened about his shoulders. “You must go with him,
Marge—if I am to have a chance! ”

Her face was against him. She was talking, low,
swiftly, for his ears alone—with Hauck already
beginning to pull her away.

“TI will go to the house. When you see me at that
window fall on your face. I have a rifle—I will shoot
him dead—from the window #

Perhaps Hauck heard. David wondered as he
caught the glitter in his eyes when he drew the girl
away. He heard the crash of the big gate to the cage,
and Tara ambled out and took his way slowly and
limpingly toward the edge of the forest. When he saw
the girl again he was standing in the centre of the cage,
his feet in a pool of blood that smeared the ground.
She was struggling with Hauck, struggling to break
from him and get to the house. And now he knew
that Hauck had heard, and that he would hold her
there, and that her eyes would be on him while Brokaw
was killing him. For he knew that Brokaw would fight
to kill. It would not be a square fight. It would be
murder—if the chance came Brokaw’s way. The
thought did not frighten him. He was growing
strangely calm in these moments. He realised the ad-
vantage of being unencumbered, and he stripped off his
Shirt, and tightened his belt. And then Brokaw
entered. The giant had stripped himself to the waist,
and he stood for a moment looking at David, a monster
with the lust of murder red in his eyes. It was fright-
fully unequal—this combat. David felt it, he was blind
if he did not see it, and yet he was still unafraid. A
great silence fell. Cutting it like a knife came the
girl’s voice :

257

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“‘Sakewawin—Sakewawin——”

A brutish growl rose out of Brokaw’s chest. He
had heard that cry, and it stung him like an asp.

“To-night she will be with me,” he taunted David,
and lowered his head for battle.

258

CHAPTER XXIV

THE KNOCK-OUT

Davin no longer saw the horde of faces beyond the
thick bars of the cage. His last glance, shot past the
lowered head and hulking shoulders of his giant ad-
vetsary, went to the girl. He noticed that she had
ceased her struggling, and was looking toward him.
After that his eyes never left Brokaw’s face. Until now
it had not seemed to him that Brokaw was so big and
so powerful, and sizing up his enemy in that moment
before the first rush he realised that his one hope was
to keep him from using his enormous strength at close
quarters. A clinch would be fatal. In Brokaw’s arms
he would be helpless; he was conscious of an un-
pleasant thrill as he though: } :w <asy it would be for
the other to break his back, or snap his neck, if he
gave him the opportunity. Science! What would it
avail him here, pitted against this mountain of flesh and
bone that looked as though it might stand the beating
of clubs without being conquered! His first blow re-
turned his confidence, even if it had wavered slightly.
Brokaw rushed. It was an easy attack to evade, and
David’s arm shot out and his fist landed against Bro-
kaw’s head with a sound that was like the crack of a
whip. Hauck would have gone down under that blow like
alog. Brokaw staggered. Even he realised that this was
Science—the skill of the game—and he was grinning as
he advanced again. He could Stand a hundre<i lows

259

The Girl Beyond the Trail

like that—a grim and ferocious Achilles with but one
vulnerable point, the end of his jaw. David waited and
watched for his opportunity as he gave ground slowly.
Twice they circled about the blood-spattered arena,
Brokaw following him with leisurely sureness, and yet
delaying his attack, as if in that steady retreat of his
victim he saw a torture too satisfying to put an end to
at once. David measured his carelessness, the slow,
almost unguarded, movement of his great body, his un-
preparedness for a coup de main—and like a flash he
launched himself forward with all the weight of his
body behind his effort.

It missed the other’s jaw by two inches, that cata-
pultic blow, striking him full in the mouth, breaking
his yellow teeth and smashing his thick lips so that the
blood sprang out in a spray over his hairy chest, and
as his head rocked backward David followed with a
swift left, and a second time missed the jaw with his
right—but drenched his clenched fist in blood. Out
of Brokaw there came a cry that was like the low roar
of a beast; a cry that was the most unhuman sound
David had ever heard come from a human throat, and
in an instant he found himself battling not for victory,
not for that opportunity he twice had missed, but for
his very life. Against that rushing bulk, enraged
almost to madness, the ingenuity of his training alone
saved him from immediate extinction. How many
times he struck in the hundred and twenty seconds fol-
lowing his blow to Brokaw’s mouth he could never
have told. He was red with Brokaw’s blood. His face
was warm with it. His hands were as if painted, so
often did they reach with right and left to Brokaw's
gory visage. It was like striking at a monstrous thing

260

The Knock-out

without the sense of hurt, a fiend that had no brain that
blows could sicken, a body that was not a body but an
enormity that had strangely taken human form.
Brokaw had struck him once—only once in those two
minutes, but blows were not what he feared now. He
was beating himself to pieces, literally beating himself
to pieces as a ship might have hammered itself against
a reef, and fighting with every breath to keep himself
out of the fatal clinch. His efforts were costing him
more than they were costing his antagonist. Twice he
had reached his jaw, twice Brokaw’s head had rocked
back on his shoulders—and then he was there again,
closing in on him, grinning, leering, dripping red to
the soles of his feet, unconquerable. Was there no fair-
ness out there beyond the bars of the cage? Were they
all like the man he was fighting—devils? An inter-
mission—only half a minute—enough to give him a
chance. The slow, invincible beast he was hammering
almost had him as his thoughts wandered. He only
half fended the sledge-like blow that came Straight for
his face. He ducked, swung up his guard like light-
ning, and was saved from death by a miracle. That
blow would have crushed in his face—killed him. He
knew it. Brokaw’s huge fist landed against the side of
his head and grazed off like a bullet that had struck the
slanting surface of a rock. Yet the force of it was
sufficient to send him crashing back against the bars—
and down.

In that moment he thanked God for Brokaw’s slow-
ness. He had a clear recollection afterward of almost
having spoken the words as he lay dazed and helpless
for an infinitesimal space of time. He expected Brokaw
to end it there. But Brokaw stood mopping the blood

261

The Girl Beyond the Trail

from his face, as if partly blinded by it, while from
beyond the cage there came a swiftly growing rumble
of voice that ended in a shouting of triumph—white
men’s shouting! He heard a scream. It was that
scream—the agonised cry of the girl—that brought him
to his feet while Brokaw was still wiping the ho! flow
from his dripping jaw. It was that cry that cleared his
brain, that called out to him in its despair that he must
win, that all was lost for her as well as for himself if
he was vanquished—for more positively than at any
other time during the fight he felt now that defeat would
mean death. It had come to him definitely in the
Savage outcry of joy when he was down. There was
to be no mercy from those who were watching. Even
in the silence of the Indians he had read an ominous
decree. And Brokaw

He was like a madman as he came toward him again.
There was no longer the leer on his face. The grin
was gone. There was in his battered and swollen
countenance but one emotion. Blood and hurt could
not hide it. It blazed like fires in his half-closed eyes.
It was the desire to kill. The passion which quenches
itself in the taking of life, and every fibre in David's
brain rose to meet it. He knew that it was no longer
a matter of blows on his part—it was like the David of
old facing Goliath with his bare hands. Curiously the
thought of Goliath came to him in these flashing
moments. Here, too, there must be trickery, some-
thing unexpected, a deadly stratagem, and his brain
must work out his salvation quickly. Another two or
three minutes and it would be over one way or the other.
He made his decision. ‘The tricks of his own art were
inadequate, but there was still one hope—one last

262

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The Knock-out

chance. It was the “knee-break” of the bush-country,
a horrible thing he had thought when Father Roland
had taught it to him. “Break your opponent’s knees,”
the missioner had said, “and you’ve got him where he
can’t fight.” The idea had been distasteful to him, and
he had never practised it. But he knew the methad,
and he remembered the little missioner’s words—“ When
he’s straight facing you, with all your weight, like a
cannon ball!” And suddenly he shot himself out like
that, as Brokaw was about to rush upon him—a hundred
and sixty pounds of solid flesh and bone against the
joints of Brokaw’s knees!

The shock dazed him. There was a sharp pain in
his left shoulder, and with that shock and pain he was
conscious of a terrible cry as Brokaw crashed over him.
He was on his feet when Brokaw was on his knees.
And now he struck in—with all the Strength in his
body he sent his right again and again to that great
bleeding jaw of his enemy. Brokaw reached up and
caught him in his huge arms, but that jaw was there,
unprotected, and David battered it as he might have
broken rock with a hammer. A gasping cry rose out
of the giant’s throat, his head sank backward—and
through a red fury, through blood that spattered up
into his face, David continued to Strike until the
arms relaxed about him, and with a choking gurgle
of blood in his throat Brokaw dropped back limply,
as if dead.

And then David looked again beyond the bars. The
Staring faces had drawn nearer to the cage, bewildered,
stupefied, disbelieving, like stone images. For a space
it was so quiet that it seemed to him they must hear
his panting breath and the choking gurgle that was

263

The Girl Beyond the Trail

still in Brokaw’s throat. The victor! He flung back
his shoulders and held up his head, though he had a
great desire to stagger against one of the bars and
rest. He could see the girl and Hauck—and now the
girl was standing alone, looking at him. She had seen
him. She had seen him beat that giant beast, and a
great pride rose in his breast and spread in a joyous
light over his bloody face. Suddenly he lifted his
hand and waved it at her. In a flash she was coming to
him. She would have broken her way through the
cordon of men, but Hauck stopped her. He had seen
Hauck talking swiftly to two of the white men. And
now Hauck caught the girl and held her back. David
knew that he was dripping red, and he was glad that
she came no nearer. Hauck was telling her to go to
the house, and David nodded, and with a mu’ement of
his hand made her understand that she must obey. Not
until he saw her going did he pick up his shirt and step
out among the men. Three or four of the whites went
to Brokaw. The rest stared at him still in that amazed
silence as he passed among them. He nodded and
smiled at them, as though beating Brokaw had not been
such a terrible task after all. He noticed there was
scarcely an expression in the faces of the Indians. And
then he found himself face to face with Hauck, and a
step or two behind Hauck were the two white men he
had talked to so hurriedly. One of them was the man
David had brushed against in passing through the big
room. There was a grin in his face now. There was
a grin in Hauck’s face, and a grin in the face of the
third man, and to David’s astonishment Hauck thrust
out his hand.

“Shake, Raine! I'd have bet a thousand to fifty

264

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to fifty

The Knock-out

you were loser, but there wasn’t a dollar going your
way. A great fight!”

He turned to the other two.

“Take Raine to his room, boys. Help ’im wash up.
I’ve got to see to Brokaw—an’ this crowd.”

David protested. He was all right. He needed only
water and soap, both of which were in his room, but
Hauck insisted that it wasn’t Square—and wouldn’t look
tight—if he didn’t have friends as well as Brokaw.
Brokaw had forced the affair so suddenly that none of
them had had time or thought to speak an encouraging
or friendly word before the fight. Langdon and Henry
would go with him now. He walked between the two to
The Nest, and entered his room with them. Langdon,
the tall man who had looked hatred at him last night,
poured water into a big tin basin while Henry, the
smaller man, closed his door. They appeared quite
companionable, especially Langdon.

“Didn’t like you last night,” he confessed frankly.
“Thought you was one of them damned police running
your nose into our business mebby.”

He stood beside David, with the pail of water in his
hand, and as David bent over the basin Henry was
behind him. He had drawn something from his pocket,
and was edging up close. As David dipped his hands
into the waier he looked up into Langdon’s face, and he

saw there a strange and unexpected change—that deadly
malignity of last night. In that moment the object in
Henry’s hand fell with terrific force on his head and he
crumpled down over the basin. He was conscious of a
single agonising pain, like a hot iron thrust suddenly
through him, and then a great and engulfing pit of
darkness closed him in.

265

CHAPTER XXV

“THEY HAVE FOUND OUR TRAIL!”

In that chaotic night in which he was drifting David
experienced neither pain nor very much of the sense of
life. And yet, without seeing or feeling, he seemed to
be living. All was dead in him but that last con-
sciousness, which is almost the spirit; he might have
been dreaming, and minutes, hours, or even years
might have passed in that dream. For a long time he
seemed to be sinking through the blackness; and then
something stopped him, without jar or shock, and he
was rising. He could hear nothing at first. There was
a vast silence about him, a silence as deep and unbroken
as the abysmal pit in which he seemed to be floating.
After that he felt himself swaying and rocking, as
though tossed gently on the billows of a sea. This
was the first thought that took shape in his struggling
brain—he was at sea; he was on a ship in the heart of
a black night, and he was alone. He tried to call out,
but his tongue seemed gone. It seemed a long time
before day broke, and then it was a strange day. Little
needles of light pricked his eyes; silver strings shot like
flashes of web-like lightning through the darkness, and
he began to feel, and to hear. A dozen hands seemed
holding him down until he could move neither arms
nor feet. He heard voices. There appeared to be many
of them at first, an unintelligible rumble of voice, and
then very swiftly they became two.
266

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He opened his eyes. The first thing that he observed

was a bar of sunlight against the eastern wall of his
room. That bit of sunlight was like a magnet thrown
there to reassemble the faculties that had drifted away
from him in the dark night of his unconsciousness. It
tried to tell him, first of all, that it was afternoon —
quite late in the afternoon. He would have sensed that
fact in another moment or two, but something came
between him and the radiance flung by the westward
slant of the sun. It was a face, two faces—first Hauck’s
and then Brokaw’s! Yes, Brokaw was there ! Staring
down at him. A fiend still. And almost unrecog-
nisable. He was no longer stripped, and he was no
longer bloody. His countenance was swollen ; his lips
were raw, one eye was closed—but the other gleamed
like a devil’s. David tried to sit up. He managed
with an effort, and balanced himself on the edge
of his cot. His head was dizzy, and he felt clumsy
and helpless as a stuffed bag. His hands were
tied behind him, and his feet were bound. He
thought Hauck looked like an exultant gargoyle as
he stood there with a horrible grin in his face, and
Brokaw——.

It was Brokaw who bent over him, his thick fingers
knotting, his one open eye fairly livid.

“T’m glad you ain’t dead, Raine.”

His voice was husky, muffled by the swollen thick-
ness of his battered lips.

“Thanks,” said David. The dizziness was leaving
him, but there was a Steady pain in his head. He tried
to smile. “Thanks!” It was rather idiotic of him to
say that. Brokaw’s hands were moving slowly toward
his throat when Hauck drew him back,

R 267

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

“T won’t touch him—not now,” he growled. “But
to-night—oh, God!”

His knuckles snapped.

“You-—liar! You—spy! You—sneak ‘” he cursed
through his broken teeth. David saw where they had
been—a cavity in that cruel, battered mouth. ‘And
you think, after that——”

Again Hauck tried to draw him away. Brokaw flung
off his hand angrily.

“J won’t touch him—but I'll tell him, Hauck! The
devil take me body and soul if I don’t! I want him to
know——”

“You're a fool!” cried Hauck. “Stop, or by
heaven——”’

Brokaw opened his mouth and laughed, and David
saw the havoc of his blows. He fairly hissed :

“You'll do what, Hauck? Nothing—that’s what
you'll do! Ain't I told him you killed that napao
from MacPherson? Haven't I told him enough to set
us both swinging?” He bent over David until his -
breath struck his face. “I’m glad you didn’t die,
Raine,” he repeated, “because I want to see you when
you shuffle off. We're only waiting for the Indians to
go. Old Wapi starts with his tribe at sunset. I’m
sorry, but we can’t get the heathen away any earlier
because he says it’s good luck to start a journey at
sunset in the Moulting Moon. You'll start yours a little
later—as soon as they’re out of sound of a rifle shot.
You can’t trust Indians, eh? You made a hit with old
Wapi, and it wouldn’t do to let him know we're going
to send you where you sent my bear. Eh—would it?”

“You mean—you’re going to murder me?” said

David.
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“If standing you up against a tree and putting a
bullet through your heart is murder—yes,” gloated
Brokaw.

“‘Murder——” repeated David.

He seemed powerless to say more than that. An
overwhelming dizziness was creeping over him again,
the pain was splitting his head, and he swayed back-
ward. He fought to recover himself, to hold himself
up, but that returning sickness reached from his brain
to the pit of his stomach, and with a groan he sank
face downward on the cot. Brokaw was still talking,
but he could no longer understand his words. He heard
Hauck’s sharper voice, their retreating footsteps, the
opening and closing of the door—fighting all the time
to keep himself from falling off into that black and
bottomless pit again. It was many minutes before he
drew himself to a sitting posture on the edge of his cot,
this time slowly and guardedly, so that he would not
rouse the pain in his head. It was there. He could
feel it burning steadily and deeply, like one of his old-
time headaches.

The bar of sunlight was gone from the wall, and
through the one small window in the west end of his
room he saw the fading light of day outside. It was
morning when he had fought Brokaw—it was now
almost night. The wash-basin was where it had fallen
when Henry struck him. He saw a red stain on the
floor where he must have dropped. Then again he
looked at the window. It was rather oddly out of
place, so high up that one could not look in from the
outside —a rectangular slit to let in light, and so narrow
that a man could not have wormed his way through it.
He had seen nothing particularly significant in its loca-

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

tion last night, or this morning, but now it struck him
as forcibly as the pieces of babiche thong that bound
his wrists and ankles. A guest might be housed in
this room without suspicion and at the turn of a key be
made a prisoner. There was no way of escape unless
one broke down the heavy door or cut through the log
walls.

Gradually he was overcoming his sensation of sick-
ness. His head was clearing, and he began to breathe
more deeply. He tried to move his cramped arms.
They were without feeling, like lifeless weights hung
to his shoulders. With an effort he thrust out his feet.
And then—through the window—there came to him a
low, thrilling sound.

It was the muffled boom, boom, boom of a tom-tom.

Wapi and his Indians were going, and he heard
now a weird and growing chant, a savage pzan to the
wild gods of the Moulting Moon, who opened their
ears and their eyes for thirty days at each setting of
the sun. A gasp rose in his throat. It was almost a
cry. His last hope was going—with Wapi and his
tribe! Would they help him if they knew? If he
shouted? If he shrieked for them through that open
window? It was a mad thought, an impossible thought,
but it set his heart throbbing for a moment. And then—
suddenly—it seemed to stand still. A key rattled in the
lock, turned, *he door opened—and Marge O’Doone
stood before him!

She was panting—-sobbing—as if she had been run-
ning a long distance. She made no effort to speak, but
dropped at his feet and began sawing at the caribou
babiche wih a knife. She had come prepared with that
knife, a ten-inch hunting-knife! He felt the bonds

270

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“They have Found Our Trail!”

snap, and before either had spoken she was at his back,
and his hands were free. They were like lead. She
dropped the knife then, and her hands were at his face
—dark with the dry stain of blood, and over and over
again she was calling him by the name she had given
him—Sakewawin. And then the tribal chant of Wapi
and his people grew nearer and louder as they passed
into the forest, and with a choking cry the girl drew
back from David and stood facing him.

“I—must hurry,” she spoke swiftly now. “Listen!
They are going! Hauck or Brokaw will go as far as
the lake with Wapi—and the one who does not go will
return here. See, Sakewawin—I have brought you a
knife! When he comes—you must kill him!”

The chanting voices had passed. The pzan was
dying away in the direction of the fores :

He did not interrupt her. With hands clutched at
her breast she went on.

“I waited—until all were out there. They kept me
in my room and left Marcee—the old Indian woman—
to watch me. When they were all out to see Wapi off
I struck her over the head with the end of Nisikoos’s
rifle. Maybe she is dead. Tara is out there. I know
where to find him when it is dark. I will make up a
pack, and within an hour we must go. If Hauck comes
to your room before then, or Brokaw, kill him with
the knife, Sakewawin! — If you don’t—they will kill
you!”

Her voice broke in a gasp that was like a sob. He
Struggled to rise; stood swaying before her, his legs
unsteady as stilts under him.

“My gun, Marge—my pistol!” he demanded, trying
to reach out his arms. “If I had them now és

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

“They must have taken them,” she interrupted.
“But I have Nisikoos’s rifle, Sakewawin! Oh—I must
hurry! They won’t come to my room, and Marcee is—
perhaps dead. As soon as it is dark I will unlock your
door. And if one of them comes before then you must
kill him! You must! You must!”

She had backed to the door, and now she opened
it, and was gone. A key clicked in the lock again;
he heard her swift footsteps in the hall, and a second
door opened and closed.

For a few moments he stood without moving, a
little dazed by the suddenness with which she had left
him. She had not been in his room more than a
minute or two. She had been terribly frightened,
terribly afraid of discovery before her work was done.
On the floor at his feet lay the knife. That was why
she had come, that was what she had brought him!
His blood began to tingle. He could feel it resuming
its course through his numbed legs and arms, and he
leaned over slowly, half afraid that he would lose his
balance, and picked up the weapon. The chanting of
Wapi and his people was only a distant murmur;
through the high window came the sound of returning
voices—the voices of white men!

There swept through him the wild thrill of the
thought that once more the fight was up to him!
Marge O’Doone had done her part. She had struck
down the Indian woman whom Hauck had placed over
her as a guard, had escaped from her room, freed him,
and put a knife into his hands. The rest was his fight.
How long before Brokaw or Hauck would come?
Would they give him time to get the blood running
through his body again? Time to gain strength to

272

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“They have Found Our Trail!”

use his freedom—and the knife? He began walking
slowly across the room, pumping his arms up and down.
His strength returned quickly. He went to the pail of
water and drank deeply with a consuming thirst. The
water refreshed him, and he paced back and forth more
and more swiftly, until he was breathing steadily and
he could harden his muscles and knot his fists. He
looked at the knife. It was a horrible necessity—the
burying of that steel into a man’s back, or his heart !
Was there no other way, he wondered? He began
searching the room. Why hadn’t Marge brought him
a club instead of a knife, or at least a club along with
the knife? To club a man down, even when he was
intent on murder, wasn’t like letting out his life in a
gush of blood. And there was nothing in the room,
nothing— -

His eyes rested on the table, and in a moment he
had turned it over and was wrenching at one of the
wooden legs. It broke off with a sharp snap, and
he held in his hand a weapon possessing many
advantages over the knife. The latter he thrust in
his belt with the handle just back of his hip. Then
he waited.

It was not for long. The western mountains had
shut out the last reflections of the sun. Gloom was be-
ginning to fill his room, and he numbered the minutes
as he stood with his ear close to the door, listening for
a step, hopeful that it would be the girl’s and not
Hauck’s or Brokaw’s. At last the step came, advanc-
ing from the end of the hall. It was a heavy step, and
he drew a deep breath, and gripped his club, and his
heart gave a sudden mighty throb as it stopped at his
door. It was not pleasant to think of what he was about

273

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

to do, and yet he realised, as he heard a key in the
lock, that it was a grim and terrible necessity. He
was thankful there was only one. He would not strike
toc hard—not in this cowardly way—from ambush.
Just enough to do the business sufficiently well. It
would be easy—quite. He raised his club in the
thickening dusk, and held his breath.

The door opened, and Hauck entered, and stood with
his back to David. Horrible! Strike a man like that-—
andwithaclub! If he could use his hands, choke him,
give him at least a quarter of achance—— __ But it had to
be done. It was a sickening thing. Hauck went down
without a groan—so silently, so lifelessly that David
thought he had killed him. He knelt beside him for a
few seconds and made sure that his heart was beating
before he rose to his feet. He looked out into the hail.
The lamps had not been lighted—probably that was one
of the old Indian woman's duties; from the big room
came the sound of voices—and then, close to him, from
the door across the way, there came a small, trembling
voice.

“Hurry, Sakewawin! Lock the door—and come!”

For another instant he dropped on his knees at
Hauck’s side. Yes, it was there—in his pocket—a re-
volver! He possessed himself of the weapon with an
exclamation of joy, locked the door, and ran across the
hall. The girl opened her door for him, closed it
behind him as he sprang into her room. The first
thing he noticed was the Indian woman. She was lying
on a cot, and her black eyes were levelled at them like
the eyes of a snake. She was trussed up so securely,
and was gagged so thoroughly, that he could not re-
Strain a laugh as he bent over her.

274

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“They have Found Our Trail!”

“Splendid!” he cried softly. ‘“ You're a little brick,
Marge—you sure are! And now—what?”

With the revolver in his hand, and the girl trem-
bling under his arm, he felt a ridiculous desire to shout
out at the top of his voice to his enemies, letting them
know that he was again ready to fight. In the gloom
the girl’s eyes shone like stars.

“Which was it?” she whispered.

“ Hauck.”

“Then it was Brokaw who went with Wapi. Lang-
don and Henry went with him. It is less than two
miles to the lake, and they will be returning soon. We
must hurry! Look—it is growing dark!”

She ran from his arm to the window and he followed
her.

“In—fifteen minutes—we will go, Sakewawin. Tara
is out there in the edge of the spruce.” Her hand
pinched his arm. “Did you—kill him?” she breathed.

“No. I broke off a leg from the table and stunned
him.”

“Pm glad,” she said, and snuggled close to him
shiveringly. “I’m glad, Sakewawin.”

In the darkness that was gathering about them it
was impossible for him not to take her in his arms. He
held her close, bowing his head so that for an instant
her warm face touched his own ; and in those moments
while they waited for the gloom to thicken he told her
in a low voice what he had learned from Brokaw. She
grew fense against him as he continued, and when he
assured her there was no longer a doubt her mother was
alive, and that she was the woman he had met in the
train, a cry rose out of her breast. She was about to
speak when loud footsteps in the hall made her catch

275

The Girl Beyond the Trail

her breath, and her fingers clung more tightly at his
shoulders.

“It is time,” she whispered. ‘‘We must go!”

She ran from him quickly, and from under the cot
where the Indian vy. oman lay dragged forth a pack. He
could not see plainly what she was doing now, but in a
moment she had put a rifle in his hands.

‘It belonged to Nisikocs,” she said. ‘There are six
shots in it, and here are all the cart..dges I have.”

He took them in his hand and counted them as he
dropped them into his pocket. There were eleven in
all, including the six in the chamber. ‘“Thirty-twos,”
he thought, as he sized them up with his fingers.
“Good for partridges—and short range at men!” He
said aloud: “If we could get my rifle, Marge——”

“They have taken it,” she told him again. ‘But we
will not need it, Sakewawin,” she added, as if his voice
had revealed to her the thought in his mind. “I
know of a mountain that is all rock—not sc far as
the one Tara and I climbed—and if we can reach
that they will not be able to trail us. If they should
find us——”

She was opening the window.

“What then ?” he asked.

“Nisikoos once killed a bear with that gun,” she
replied.

The window was open, and she was waiting. They
thrust out their heads and listened, and when he had
assured himself that all was clear he dropped out the
pack. He lifted Marge down then and followed her.
As his feet struck the ground the slight shock sent a
pain through his head that made him cry out, and for a
moment he leaned with nis back against the wall, almost

276

“They have Found Our Trail!”

overcome again by that sickening dizziness. It was
not so dark that the girl did not see the sudden change a
in him. Her eyes filled with alarm.

“A little dizzy,” he explained, trying to smile at
her. ‘They gave me a pretty hard crack on the head, :
Marge. This air will set \e right—soon.”

He picked up the pack and followed her. In the
edge of the spruce a hundred yards from The Nest
Tara had been lying all the afternoon, nursing his
wounds.

“I could see him from my window,” whispered

Marge.
He She went straight to him and began talking to him
in a low voice. Out of the darkness © .d Tara came
eon a growl.
a “Baree, by thunder!” cried David in amazement. if
ae ‘“He’s made up with the bear, Marge! What do you |
think of that?” :
: At the sound of his voice Baree came » him and
‘agi flattened himself at his feet. David laid a hand on f
ae his head.
“Boy!” he whisnered softly. “And they said you
were an outlaw, and would he wolves——” |
: He saw the dark bulk o: Tara rising out of the a
=e gloom, and the girl was at his side. i
“We are ready, Sakewawin.” q
hey He spoke to her the thought that had been shaping |
had itself in his mind. j
the “Why wouldn’t it be better to join Wapi and his a.
< Indians?” he asked, remembering Brokaw’s words. ‘a
waa “Because they are afraid of Hauck,” she replied i
ai quickly. “There is but one way, Sakewawin—to follow i |
ost a narrow trail Tara and I have made close to the foot rt
277 i}
{

The Girl Beyond the Trail

of the range until we come to the rock mountain. Shall
we risk the bundle on Tara’s back?”

“It is light. I will carry it.”

“Then give me your hand, Sakewawin.”

There was again in her voice the joyous thrill of
freedom and of confidence ; he could hear for a moment
the wild throb of her heart in its exultation at their
escape, and with her warm little hand she gripped his
fingers firmly and guided him into a sea of darkness.
The forest shut them in. Not a ray fell upon them
from out of the pale sky where the stars were beginning
to glimmer taintly. Behind them he could hear the
heavy, padded footfall of the big grizzly, and he knew
that Baree was very near. After a little the girl said,
still in a whisper :

“Does your head hurt you now, Sakewawin ?”

& BR,”

The trail was widening. It was quite smooth for a
space, but black.

She pressed his fingers.

“T believe all you have told me,” she said, as if
making a confession. “ After you came to me in the
cage—and the fight—I believed. You must have loved
me a great deal to risk all that for me.”

“Yes, a great deal, my child,” he answered.

Why did that dizziness persist in his head, he
wondered? For a moment he felt as if he was falling.

“A very great deal,” he added, trying to walk
steadily at her side, his own voice sounding unreal and
at a great distance from him. “You see, my child, I
didn’t have anything to love but your picture——”

What a fool he was to try and make himself heard
above that roaring in his head! His words seemed to

278

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“They have Found Our Trail!”

him whispers coming across a great space. And the
bundle flung over his shoulder—it was like a crushing
weight bearing him down! The voice at his side was
growing fainter. It was saying things which afterward
he could not remember, but he knew that it was talking
about the woman he had said was her mother, and that
he was answering it while weights of lead were dragging
at his feet. Then, suddenly, he had stepped over the
edge of the world and was floating in that vast black
chaos again. The voice did not leave him. He could
hear it sobbing, entreating him, urging him to do some-
thing which he could not understand; and when at
last he did begin to comprehend it he knew also that
he was no longer walking with weights at his feet and
a burden on his shoulders, but was on the ground. His
head was on her breast, and she was no longer speaking
to him, but was crying like a child with a heart utterly
broken. The deathly sickness was gone as qu. ‘ly as
it had stricken him, and he struggled upward, wi.a her
arms helping him.

“You are hurt—hurt——” he heard her moaning.
“If I can only get you on Tara, Sakewawin—on Tara’s
'.ck—there—a step—” and he knew that was what
she had been saying over and over again, urging him
to help himself if he could, so that she could get him
to Tara. He reached out and his hand buried itself in
the thick hair of the grizzly, and he tried to speak
laughingly so that she would not know his fears.

“One is often dizzy—like that—after a blow,” he
said. “TI guess—I can walk now.”

“No, no, you must ride Tara,” she insisted. “You
are hurt—and you must, Sakewawin, you must!”

She was lifting at his arm with all her Strength, her

279

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

breath beating hot and panting in his face, and Tara
stood without moving a muscle of his giant body, as
if he, too, was urging upon him in this dumb manner
the necessity of obeying his mistress. Even then David
would have remonstrated, but he felt once more that
appalling sickness creeping over him, and he raised
himself slowly astride the grizzly’s broad back. The
girl picked up the bundle and rifle, and Tara followed
her through the darkness. To David the beast’s great
back seemed a wonderfully safe and comfortable place,
and he leaned forward with his fingers clutched deeply
in t'« long hair of the ruff about the bear’s hulking
shoulders.

The girl called back to him softly :

“You are all right, Sakew.win?”

“Yes, it is so comfortable that I feel I may fall
asleep,” he replied.

Out in the starlight she would have seen his droop-
ing head, and his words would have had a different
meaning for her. He was fightin~ with himself
desperately, and in his heart was a giat fear. He
must be badly hurt—his skull fractured—his brain
injured—— If it was that! There came to him a dis-
torted but vivid vision of an Indian hurt in the head,
whom he and Father Roland had tried to save. With-
out a surgeon it had been impossible. The Indian had
died, and he had had those same spells of sickness, the
sickness that was creeping over him again in spite of
his effort to fight it off. He had no very clear notion
of the movement of Tara’s body under him, but he
knew that he was holding on grimly, and that every
little while the girl called back to him, and he replied.
Then came the time when he failed to answer, and for

280

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“They have Found Our Trail!”

a time the rocking motion under him ceased and the
girl’s voice was very near to him. Afterwards motion
was resumed. It seemed to him that he was travelling
a great dis anve. Altogether too far without an inter-
ruption for sleep, or at least a rest. He was conscious
of a desire to voice a protest—and all the time his
fingers were clamped in Tara’s mane in a sort of
death-grip.

And in her breast Marge’s heart was beating like a
hunted thing, and over and over again she sobbed out
a broken prayer as she guided Tara and his burden
through the night. From the forest into tie starlit
open; from the open into the thick gloom of forest
again-—in and out of starlight and darkness, following
that trail down the valley. She was no longer thinking
of the rock mountain, for it would be impossible now
to climb over the range into the other valley. She was
heading for a cabin. An old and abandoned cabin,
where they could hide. She tried to tell David about
it, many days after they had begun that journey it
seemed to him.

“Only a little longer, Sakewawin,” she cried, with
her arm about him and her lips close to his bent head.
“Only a little longer! They will not think to search
for us there, and you can sleep—sleej»——_”

Her voice drifted away from him like a low murmur
in the tree-tops—and his fingers still clung in that
death-grip to the mane at Tara’s neck.

And sill many other days later they came to the
cabin. It was amazing to him that the girl should say :

“We are orty five miles from The Nest, Sakewawin,
but they will not hunt for us here. They will think we
have gone farther—or over the mountains!”

281

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

She was putting cold water to his face, aud now thai
there was no longer the rolling motion under him he
was not quite so dizzy. She had unrolled the bundle
and had spread out a blanket, and when he stretchec
himself out on this a sense of vast relief came over him
In his confused consciousness two or three things stooc
out with rather odd clearness before he closed his eyes
and the last of them was a vision of the girl’s face bend
ing over him, and of her great starry eyes looking dowr
at him, and of her voice urging him gently :

“Try and sleep, Sakewawin—try and sleep——”

* * * * *

It was many hours later when he awoke. Hand:
seemed to be dragging him forcibly out of a place i
which he was very comfortable, and which he did no
want to leave, and a voice was accompanying the hand:
with an annoying insistency—a voice which was grow
ing more and more farniliar to him as his sleeping sense:
were roused. He opened his eyes. It was day, anc
Marge was on her knees at his side, tugging at hi
breast with her hands and staring wildly into his face.

“Wake, Sakewawin—wake, wake!” he heard he
crying. “Oh, my God, you must wake! Sakewawin-—
Sakewawin—they have found our trail—and I can se
them cm .g up the valley!”

282

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can see

CHAPTER XXVI

SCARCELY had David sensed the girl's words of war nin.
than he was on his feet. And now, when he saw itr,
he thankec’ God that his head was clear, and that he
could fight. Even yesterday, when she had stood
before the fighting bears, and he had fought Brokaw,
she had not been whiter than she vas now. Her face
told him of their danger before he had seen it with his
own eyes, it told him their peril was appallingly near,
and that there was no chance of escaping it. He saw
for the first time that his bed on the ground had been
close to the wall of an old cabin, and that this cabin
was in a little dip two ~- three hu: 'red yards up the
Sloping face of the mountain. Bef... he could take in
more, or discover a visible sigi of their enemies, Marge
had caught his hand and wa: drawing him to the end
of the shack. She «ii not Spcali as she pointed down-
ward. In the edge <. the valley, just beginning the
ascent, were eight or ten men, and at that distance it
was not difficult for David to make out both Hauck and
Brokaw. He could not determine their exact number,
for as he looked they were already disappearing under
the face of a lower dip in the mountain. They were
not more than four or five hundred yards away. It
would take them a matter of twenty minutes to make
the ascent to the cabin.
He looked at Marge. Despairingly she pointed to
s 283

The Girl Beyond the Trail

the mountain behind them. For a quarter of a mile
it was a sheer wall of red sandstone. Their one way of
flight lay downward into the valley, practically into the
face of their enemies.

“I was going to rouse you before it was light, Sake-
wawin,” she explained in a voice that was dead with
hopelessness. “I kept awake for hours, and then I
fell asleep. Baree awakened me, and now—it is too
late.”

“Yes, too late to run!” said David.

A flash of fire leapt into her eyes. “You mean——’

“We can fight!” he cried. ‘“‘Good God, Marge—
if I only had my own gun now!” He thrust a hand
into his pocket and drew forth the cartridges she had
given him. ‘‘Thirty-twos. And only eleven of them.
It’s got to be short range for us. We can’t put up a
running fight, for they’d keep out of range of this little
pea-shooter and fill me as full of holes as a sieve.”

She was tugging at his arm.

“The cabin, Sakewawin!” she exclaimed with
sudden inspiration. “It has a strong bar at the door,
and I remember the clay has fallen in places from
between the logs, leaving openings through which you
can shoot! We must take Tara and Baree in with us!”

He was already examining Nisikoos’s rifle.

“ At a hundred and fifty yards it’s good for a man,”
he said. “You get the beasts and the pack inside,
Marge. I’m going to take a dilemma by the horns and
eliminate two or three of our friends from this shoot-
fest as they come up over that knoll down there. They
won’t be looking for bullets this early in the game, and
I'll have them at an advantage. If I’m lucky enough
to get Hauck and Brokaw =

284

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Tara Takes Vengeance

His eyes had selected a big rock twenty yards from
the cabin from which he could overlook the Slope to
the first dip below them, and as Marge darted from him
to get Tara and Baree into the cabin he crouched be-
hind the boulder and waited. He figured that it was
not more than a hundred and fifty yards to the point
where their pursuers would first appear, and he made
up his mind that he would wait until they were nearer
than that before he opened fire. Not one of those eleven
precious cartridges must be wasted, for he could count
on Hauck’s revolver only at close quarters. It was no
longer a time for doubt or indecision. Brokaw and
Hauck were deliberately pushing the fight to a finish,
and not to beat them meant death for himself and a
fate for the girl which made him grip his rifle tighter
as he waited.

He looked behind him, and saw Marge leading
Tara into the cabin. Baree had crept up beside
him and lay flat on the ground close to the rock.
A moment or two later the girl reappeared and ran
across the narrow open space to David, and crouched
down close to him.

“You had better go into the cabin, Marge,” he re-
monstrated. “They will Probably begin shooting——:

“I’m going to stay near you, Sakewawin.”

Her face was no longer white. A flush had risen
into her cheeks, her eyes shone as she looked at him—
and she smiled. A child! His heart rose chokingly in
his throat. Her face was close to his, and she
whispered :

“Last night I kissed you, Sakewawin. I thought
you were dying. Before you I have kissed Nisikoos.
Never anyone else.”

285

ie ainWiatidtndltonih

The Girl Beyond the Trail

Why did she say that, with that wonderful glow in
her eyes? Was it the death climbing up the mountain ?
Was it because she wanted him to know—before that?
A child!

She whispered again :

“And you—have never kissed me, Sakewawin.
Why?”

His fingers relinquished their grip on the rifle.
Slowly he drew her to him, until her head lay against
his breast, her shining eyes and parted lips turned up
to him, and he kissed her on the mouth. A wild flood
of colour rushed into her face and her arms crept up
about his shoulders. The glory of her radiant hair
covered his breast. He buried his face in it, and for a
moment crushed her so close that she did not breathe.
And then again he kissed her mouth, not once but a
dozen times, and then held her back from him and
looked into her face that was no longer the face of a
child, but of a woman.

“Because——” he began, and stopped.

Baree was growling. Cautiously he peered down
the slope.

“They are coming!” he said. “Marge, you must
creep back to the cabin!”

“I am going to stay with you, Sakewawin. See, I
will flatten myself out like this—with Baree.”

She snuggled herself down against the rock, and
again David peered from his ambush. Their pursuers
were well over the crest of the dip, and he counted nine.
They were advancing in a group, and he saw that both
Hauck and Brokaw were in the rear and that they were
using staffs in their toil upward, and did not carry
rifles. The remaining seven were armed, and were

286

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Tara Takes Vengeance

headed by Langdon, who was fifteen or twenty yards
aliead of his companions. David made up his mind
quickly to take Langdon first, and to follow up with
others who carried rifles. Hauck and Brokaw, unarmed
with guns, were the least dangerous of them all just at
present. He would get Brokaw with his fifth shot—the
sixth if he made a miss with the fifth.

A thin strip of shale marked his hundred-yard dead-
line, and the instant Langdon set his foot on this David
fired. A fierce yell of defiance rang from his lips as
Langdon whirled in his tracks and pitched down among
the men behind him. He rose up boldly from behind
his rock now and fired again. In that huddled and
astonished mass he could not miss. A shriek came up
to him. He fired a third time, and he heard a joyous
cry of triumph beside him as their enemies rushed for
safety toward the dip from which they had just climbed.
A fourth shot, and he picked out Brokaw. Twice he
missed! His gun was empty when Brokaw lunged out
of view. Langdon remained an inanimate blotch on
the strip of shale. A few steps below him was a second
body. A third man was dragging himself on hands
and knees over the crest of the coulee. Three—with six
shots! And he had missed Brokaw! Inwardly David
groaned as he caught the girl by the arm and hurried
with her into the cabin, followed by Baree.

They were not a moment too soon. From over the
edge of the coulee came a fusillade of shots from the
heavy calibre guns of the mountain men that sent out
sparks of fire from the rock.

As he thrust the remaining five cartridges into the
chamber of Nisikoos’s rifle David looked about the
cabin. In one of the farther corners the huge grizzly

287

The Girl Beyond the Trail

sat on his quarters as motionless as if stuffed. In the
centre of the single big room was an old box stove
partly fallen to pieces. That was all. Marge had
dropped the sapling bar across the door, and stood with
her back against it. There was no window, and the
closing of the door had shut out most of the light. He
could see that she was breathing quickly, and the
wonderful light that had come into her eyes behind the
rock was still glowing at him in the half gloom. It
gave him fresh confidence to see her standing like that,
looking at him in that way, telling him without words
that a thing had come into her life which had lifted her
above fear. He went to her and took her in his arms
again, and again he kissed her sweet mouth, and felt
her heart beating against him, and the warm thrill of
her arms clinging to him. He had missed three times—
three times at short range; but he still bad five shots
left, and the revolver——

A splintering crash sent him reeling back into the
centre of the cabin with Marge in his arms. The crash
had come simultaneously with the report of a rifle, and
both saw where the bullet had entered through the door
six inches above David’s head, carrying a splinter as
large as his arm with it. He had not thought of the
door. It was the cabin’s vulnerable point, and he
sprang out of line with it as a second bullet crashed
through and buried itself in the log wall at their backs.
Baree growled. A low rumble rose in Tara’s throat,
but he did not move.

In each of the four log walls were the open chinks
which Marge had told him about, and he sprang to one
of these apertures wide enough to let the barrel of his
rifle through and looked in the direction from which the

288

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Tara Takes Vengeance

two shots had come. He was in time to catch a move-
ment among the rocks on the side of the mountain a
couple of hundred yards away, and a third shot tore its
way through the door, glanced from the steel top of the
stove, and struck like a club two feet over Tara’s back.
There were two men up there among the rocks, and
their first shots were followed by a steady bombard-
ment that fairly riddled the door. David could see their
heads and sh wulders and the gleam and faint puffs of
their rifles, but he held his fire. Where were the other
four, he wondered? Witho: : doubt Hauck and Brokaw
were now armed with the rifles of the men whe had
fallen, and he had six to deal with. Cautiously he
thrust the muzzle of his gun through the crack, and
watched his chance, aiming a foot and a half above the
spot where a pair of shoulders and a head would appear
in a moment. His chance came, and he fired. The
head and shoulders disappeared, and with an exultant
cry he swung his rifle a little to the right and sent
another shot as the second man exposed himseif. He,
too, disappeared, and David’s heart was thumping
wildly in the thought that his bullets had reached their
marks when both heads appeared again and a hail of
lead spattered against the cabin. The men among the
rocks were no longer aiming at the door, but at the
spot from which he had fired, and a bullet ripned
through so close .hat a splinter stung his face, anc
felt the quick, warm flow of blood down his chec..
When the girl saw it her face was once more as white
as death.

“I can’t get them with this gun, Marge,” he
groaned. “It’s wild—wild as a hawk! Good God——”

A sudden crash of fire had come from behind the

289

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

cabin, and another bullet, finding one of the gaping
cracks, jassed between them with a sound like the duzz
of a monster bee. With a sudden cry he caught her in
his arms and held her tight, as if in his embrace he
would shield her.

“Is it possible—-they would kill you to get me?”

He loosed his nold of her, sprang to the broken
stove, and began dragging it out of the line of fire that
came through the door. The girl saw his peril and
sprang to help him. He had no time to urge her back.
In ten seconds he had the stove close to the wall, and
almost forcibly he made his companion crouch down
behind it.

“If you expose yourself for one second I swear to
Heaven I’ll stand up there against the door umil I’m
shot!” he threatened. ‘I will, so help me God!”

His brain was afire. He was no longer cool or
possessed. He was blind with a wild rage, with a mad
desire to reach in some way with his vengeance the
human beasts who were bent on his death even if it was
to be gained at the sacrifice of the girl. He rushed to
the side of the cabin from which the fresh attack had
come, and glared through one of the embrasures be
tween the logs. He was close to Tara, and he heard
the Iw, steady thunder that came out of the grizzly’s
chest. His enemies were close on this side. Their fire
came from the rocks not more than a hundred yards
away, and all at once, in the heat of the great passion
that possessed him now, he became suddenly aware that
they knew the only weapon he possessed was Nisikoos’s
little rifle—and Hauck’s revolver. Probably they knew
also how limited his ammunition was. And they were
exposing themselves. Why should he save his last

290

Tara Takes Vengeance

three shots? When they were gone and he no longer
answered their fire they would probably rush the cabin,
beat in the door, and then—the revolver! With that
he would tear out their hearis as they entered. He saw
Hauck, and fired. A man exposed himself within
seventy yards of the cak‘n a moment later, firing as fast
as he could pump the lever of his gun, and David drove
one of Nisikoos’s pa.tridge-killers straight into his
chest. He fired a second time at Hauck—another miss
—and flung the useless rifle to the floor as he sprang
back to Marge.

“Got one. Five ieft. Now—damn ’em—let them
come!”

He drew Hauck’s revolver. A bullet flew through
one of the cracks, and they heard the soft thud of it as
it struck Tara. T.:e growl in the crizzly’s throat burst
forth in a roar of thunder. The terrible sound shook
the cabin, but Tara still made no movement, except now
to swing his head with open, drooling jaws. In re-
sponse to that cry of animal rage and pain a snarl had
come from Baree. He had slunk close to Tara.

“Didn’t hurt him much,” said David, with the
fingers of his free hand crumpling the girl’s hair.
“They'll stop shooting in a minute or two, and
then——”

Straight into his eyes from that farther wall a
splinter hurled itself at him with a hissing sound like
the plunge of hot iron into water. He had the light-
ning impression of seeing the bullet as it tore through.
the clay between two of the logs; he knew that he was
str. .x, and yet he felt no pain. His mind was acutely
alive, yet he could not speak. His words had been cut
off, his tongue was powerless—it was like a shock that

291

The Girl Beyond tie Trail

had paralysed him. Even the girl did not know that
he was hit for a moment or two. The thud of his re-
volver on the floor filled her eyes with the first horror
of understanding, and she sprang to his side as he
swayed like a drunken man toward Tara. He sank
down on the floor a few feet from the grizzly, and he
heard the girl moaning over him and calling him by
name. The numbness left him, and slowly he raised
a hand to his chin, filled with a terrible fear. It was
there—his jaw, hard, unsmashed, but wet with blood.
He thought the bullet had struck him there.

“A knock-out,” were his first words, spoken slowly
and thickly, but with a great gasp of relivf. “A
splinter hit me on the jaw—— I’m all right——’”

He sat up dizzily, with the girl’s arm about him.
In their three or four minutes of forgetfulness neither
had noticed that the firing had ceased. Now there came
a tremendous blow at the door. It shook the cabin. A
second blow, a third—and the decaying saplings were
crashing inward! David struggled to rise, fell back,
and pointed to the revolver.

“Quick—the gun——”

With a gasping cry Marge sprang to it. The door
crashed inward as she picked it up, and scarcely had
she faced about when their enemies were rushing in,
with Henry and Hauck in their lead, and Brokaw just
behind them. With a last effort David fought to gain
his feet. He heard a single shot from the revolver, and
then, as he rose staggeringly, he saw Marge fighting
in Brokaw’s arms. Hauck came for him, the demon
of murder in his face, and as they went down he heard
scream after scream come from the girl’s lips and in
that scream the agonising call of “Tara! Tara! Tara!”

292

Tara Takes Vengeance

Over him he heard a roar, the rush of a great body—
and with that thunder of Tara’s rage and vengeance
there mingled a hideous, wolfish snarl from Baree. He
could see nothing. Hauck’s hands were at his throat.
But the screams continued, and above them he heard
now the cries of men—cries of horror, of agony, of
death; and as Hauck’s fingers loosened at his neck he
heard also with the snarling and roaring and tumult the
crushing of great jaws and the thud of bodies. Hauck
was rising, his face blanched with a strange terror. He
was half up when a gaunt, lithe body shot at him like
a stone flung from a catapult and Baree’s inch-long
fangs sank in his thick throat and tore his head half
from his body in one savage, snarling snap of the jaws.
David raised himself, and through the horror of what
he saw the girl ran to him—unharmed—and clasped her
arms about him, her lips sobbing all the tira, “ Tara—
Tara—Tara——” He turned her face to his breast, and
held it there. It was ghastly. Henry was dead. Hauck
was dead. And Brokaw was dead—a thousand times
dead—with the grizzly tearing his huge body into
pieces. Through that pit of death David stumbled
with the girl. The fresh air struck their faces. The
sun of day fell upon them. The green grass and the
flowers of the mountain were under their feet. They
looked down the slope, and saw disappearing over the
crest of the coulee three men, who were running for
their lives.

293

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FINDING OF MICHAEL O’DOONE

It may have been five minutes that David held the girl
in his arms staring down into the sunlit valley into
which the two last of Hauck’s men had fled, and during
that time he did not speak, and he heard only her
steady sobbing. He drew into his lungs deep breaths
of the invigorating air, and he felt himself growing
stronger as the girl’s body became heavier in his em-
brace, and her arms relaxed and slipped down from
about his shoulders. He raised her face. There were
no tears in her eyes, but she was still moaning a little,
and her lips were quivering like a crying child’s. He
bent his head and kissed them, and she caught her
breath pantingly as she looked at him with eyes which
were limpid pools of blue, out of which her terror was
slowly dying away. She whispered his name. In her
look and that whisper there was unutterable adoration.
It was for him she had been afraid. She was looking
at him now as one saved to hcr from the dead, and for
a moment he strained her still closer, and as he crushed
his face to hers he felt the warm, sweet caress of her
lips, and the thrilling pressure of her hands at his
blood-stained cheeks. A sound from behind them
turned his head, and fifty feet away he saw the big
grizzly ambling cumbrously from the cabin. They
could hear him growling as he stood in the sunshine,
his head swinging slowly from side to side like a

294

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The Finding of Michael O’Doone

monstrous pendulum--in his throat the last echoing of
that ferocious rage and hate that had destroyed their
enemies. And in the same moment Baree stood in the
door, his lips drawn back and his fangs gleaming, as
though he expected other enemies to frce him.

Quickly David led Marge beyond the boulder from
behind which he had opened the fight, and drew her
down with him into a soft carpet of grass thick with the
blue of wild violets, with the big rock shutting out the
cabin from their vision.

“Rest here, little comrade,” he said, his voice low
and trembling with his worship of her, his hands strok-
ing back her wonderful hair. “I must return to the
cabin. Then—we will go.”

6 Go ! ”

She repeated the word in the strangest, softest
whisper he had ever heard, as if in it all at once she
saw the sun and stars, the day and night, of her whole
life. She looked from his face down into the valley,
and into his face again.

“‘We—will go,” she repeated, as he rose to his feet.

She shivered when he left her, shuddered with a
terrible little cry which she tried to choke back even as
she visioned the first glow of that wonderful new life
th.: was dawning for her. David knew why. He left
her without looking down into her eyes again, anxious
to have those last terrible few minutes over. At the
open door of the cabin he hesitated, a little sick at what
he knew he would see. And yet, after all, it was no
worse than it should be; it was justice. He told himself
this as he stepped inside.

He tried not to look too closely, but the sight, after
a moment, fascinated him. If it had not been for the
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The Girl Reyond the Trail

difference in their siz| he could not have told which
was Hauck and which was Brokaw, for even on Hauck
Tara had vented his rage after Baree had killed him.
Neither bore very much the semblance of men just now
—it seemed incredible that claw and fang could have
worked such destruction; and he sprang suddenly back
to the door to see that the girl was not following him.
Then he looked again. Henry lay at his feet across
the fallen saplings of the battered door, his head twisted
completely under him—or gone. It was Henry’s rifle
he picked up. He searched for cartridges then. It was
a sickening task. He found nearly fifty of them on the
three, and went out then with the pack and the gun.
He put the pack over his shoulders before he returned to
the rock, and paused only for a moment when he re-
joined the girl. With her hand in his he struck down
into the valley.

“A great justice has overtaken them,” he said, and
that was all he told her about the cabin, and she asked
him no questions.

At the edge of the green meadows below they
stopped where a trickle of water from the mountain-
tops had formed a deep pool, and following this trickle
a little up the coulee it had formed in the course of ages
David found a sheltered spot and stripped himself. To
the waist he was covered with the stain and grime of
battle. In the open pool Marge bathed her face and
arms, and then sat down to finish her toilet with David’s
comb and brushes. When he returned to her she was
a radiant glory hidden to her waist in the gold and
brown fires of her disentangled hair. It was wonderful
He stood a step off and looked at her, his heart filled
with a wonderful joy, his lips silent. The thought

296

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The Finding of Michael O’Doone

surged upon him now in that overmastering moment of
exultation that she belonged to him, not for to-day, or
to-morrow, but for all time; that the mountains }.:4
given her to him; that among the flowers and the wild
things that “great, good God” Father Roland had
spoken of so ofter, had created her for him, and she
had been waiting for him here, pure as the wild violets
under his feet. She did not see him for a space, and
he watched her as she ran out her glowing tresses under
the strokes of his brush. And once, ages ago it seemed
to him now, he had thought that another woman was
beautiful, and that another woman’s glory was her hair !
He felt his heart singing. She had not been like this.
No. Worlds separated those two—that woman and this
God-crowned little mountain flower who had come into
his heart like the breath of a new life, opening for him
new visions that reached even beyond the blue skies.
And he wondered that she should love him. She looked
up suddenly and saw him Standi:ig there. Love? Had
he in all his life dreamed of the ‘sok that was in her
face now? It made his heart cioke him. He held
open his arms, silently, as she rose to her feet, and she
came to him in all that burnished glory of her un-
bound hair; and he held her again close in his arms,
kissing her soft I's, her flushed cheeks, her blue eyes,
the warm sweetness of her hair. And her lips kissed
him. He looked out over the valley. His eyes were
open to its beauty, but he did not see; a vision was
rising before him, and his soul was breathing a prayer
of gratitude to the missioner’s God, to the God of the
totem-worshippers over the ranges, to the God of all
things, for to him that God was now One. It may be
the girl heard his voiceless exaltation, for up through
297

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

the soft billows of her hair that lay crumpled on h
breast she whispered :

“You love me a great deal, my Sakewawin?”

“More than life,” he replied.

Her voice roused him. For a few moments he ha
forgotten the cabin, had forgotten that Brokaw an
Hauck had existed, and that they were now dead. H
held her back from him, looking into her face, out «
which all fear and horror had gone in its great happ
ness; a face filled with the joyous colour sent surgin
there by the wild beating of her heart, eyes confessin
their adoration without shame, without concealmen:
without a droop of the long lashes behind which the
might have hidden. It was wonderful, that love straigh
out of their blue, shining depths!

“We must go now,” he said, forcing himself t
break the spell. ‘Two have escaped, Marge. It i
possible, if there are others at The Nest

His words brought her back to the thing they ha
passed through with a shock. She glanced in a startle
way over the valley. Then she shook her head.

“There are two others,” she said. “But they wil
not follow us, Sakewawin. But if they should, we wil
be over the mountain.”

She braided her hair as he adjusted his pack. Hi:
heart was like a boy’s. He laughed at her a joyou:
disapproval.

“I like to see it—unbound,” he said. “It i:
beautiful. Glorious.”

It seemed to him that all the blood in her body leap
into her face at his words.

“Then—I will leave it that way,” she cried softly,
her words trembling with happiness. Her fingers

298

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The Finding of Michael O’Doone

worked swiftly in the silken plaits of her braid. Un-
confined her hair shimmered about her again. And
then, as they were about to set off, she ran up to him
with a little cry, and without touching him with her
hands raised her face to him.

“Kiss me,” she said. “Kiss me, my Sakewawin! ”

* * * * *

It was noon when they stood under the topmost
crags of the southward range, and under them they saw
once more the green valley with its silvery stream in
which they had met that first day beside the great rock.
It seemed to them both a long time ago, and the valley
was like a friend smiling up at them its welcome and
its gladness that they had at last returned. Its drone
of running waters, the whispering music of the air, and
the piping cries of the marmots sunning themselves far
below came up to them faintly as they rested, and as
the girl sat in the circle of David's arm, with her head
against his breast, she pointed off through the blue haze
miles to the eastward.

‘Are we going that way ?” she asked.

He had been thinking as they had climbed up the
mountain. Off there, where she was pointing, were his
friends, and hers; between them and that wandering
tribe of the Totem people on the Kwadocha there were
no people. Nothing but the unbroken peace of the
mountains, in which they were safe. He had ceased to
fear their immensity, was no longer disturbed by the
thought that in their vast and trackless solitudes he
might lose himself for ever. After what had Passed,
their gleaming peaks were beckoning to him, and he

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The Girl Beyond the Trail

was confident that he could find his way back to tl
Finley and down to Hudson’s Hope. What a surpri:
it would be to Father Roland when they dropped in c
him some day, he and Marge! His heart beat e:
citedly as he told her about it, described the great di
tance they must travel, and what a wonderful journe
it would be, with that glorious country at the end of it-
The Chateau. home, and—— “We'll find your moth
then,” he whispered. They talked a great deal abo
her mother and Father Roland as they made their wa
down inio the valley, and whenever they stopped 1
rest she had new questions to ask, and each tin
there was that trembling doubt in her voice, “I wond
if it’s true?” And each time he assured her th:
it was.

“T have been thinking that it was Nisikoos who set
to her the picture you wanted to destroy,” he said onc
““Nisikoos must have known.”

“Then why didn’t she tell me?” she flashed.

“Because it may be that she didn’t want to los
you—and that she didn’t send the picture until sh
knew that she was not going to live very long.”

The girl’s eyes darkened, and then—slowly—ther
came the softer glow back into them.

““T—loved—Nisikoos,” she said.

It was sunset when they began making their fir:
camp in a cedar thicket, where David shot a porcupin
for Tara and Baree. After their supper they sat for
while in the glow of the stars, and after that Marg
snuggled down in her cedar bed and went to sleep
But before she closed her eyes she put her arms aroun
his neck and kissed him good night. For a long tim
after that he sat awake thinking of the wonderfu

300

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The Finding of Michael O’Doone

dream he had dreamed all his life, which at last had
come true.

Day after day they travelled steadily into the east
and south. The mountains swallowed them, and their
feet trod the grass of many strange valleys. Strange,
and yet now and then David saw what he had seen once
before, and he knew that he had not lost the trail.
They travelled slowly, for there was no longer need
of haste; and in that land of plenty there was more of
pleasure than inconvenience in their foraging for what
they ate. In her haste in making up the contents of the
pack Marge had seized what first came to her hands in
the way of provisions, and fortunately the main part of
their stock was a twenty-pound sack of oatmeal. Of
this they made bannock and cakes. The country was
full of game. In the valleys the black currants and
wild raspberries were ripening lusciously, and now and
then in the pools of the lower valleys David would
shoot fish. Both Tara and Baree began to grow fat,
and with quiet joy David noticed that each day added
to the wonderful beauty and happiness ‘n the girl’s
face, and it seemed to him that her love was entwining
him more and more, and there was never a m “aent now
that he could not see the glow of it in her eyes. It
thrilled him that she did not want him out of her pre-
sence for more than a few minutes at a time. He loved
to fondle her hair, and she had a sweet habit of run-
ning her fingers through his own, and telling him each
time how she loved it because it was a little grey; and
she had a still sweeter habit of holding one of his hands

301

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RN ae: a gs ES el a

aga

The Girl Beyond the Trail

in both her own when she was Sitting beside him, «
Pressing it now and then to her soft lips.

They had been ten days in the mountains when, ¢
evening, sitting beside him in this way, She said w
that adorable and almost childish ingenuousness wh
he loved in her :

“It will be nice to have Father Roland marry |
Sakewawin.” And before he could answer, she adde
“I will keep house for you two at The Chateau.”

He had been thinking a great deal about that.

“But if your mother should live down there—amor
the cities?” he asked.

She shivered a little, and nestled to him.

“IT wouldn’t like it, Sakewawin—not for long.
love—this—the forests, the mountains, the skies.” At
then suddenly she caught herself, and added quickly
“But anywhere—anywhere—if you are there, Sak
wawin!”

“TI, too, love the forests, the mountains, and tl
skies,” he whispered. “We will have them with 1
always, little comrade.”

It was the fourteenth day when they descended th
eastern slopes of the Divide, and he knew that the
were not far from the Kwadocha and the F inley. Thei
fifteenth night they camped where he and “The Butte
fly’s” lover had built a noonday fire; and this night
though it was warm and glorious, with a full moon, th
girl was possessed of a desire to have a fire of thei
own, and she helped to add fuel to it until the flame:
leaped high up into the shadows of the spruce, anc

drove them far back with its heat. David was conten
to sit and smoke his pipe while he watched her flit here
and there after still more fuel, now a shadow in the
302

ail
! him, and

when, one
said with
less which

marry us,
1e added :
ju.”
hat.
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long. I
as.” And
quickly :
e, Sake-

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nded the
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fi
i
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f

The Finding of Michael O’Doone

darkness, and then again in the full fire-glow. After
a time she grew tired and nestled down beside im,
spreading her hair over his breast and about his face
in the way she knew he loved, and for an hour after
that they talked in whispering voices that trembled with
their happiness. When at last she went to bed, and
fell asleep, he walked a little Way out into the clear
moonlight and sat down to smoke and listen to the
murmur of the valley, his heart too full for sleep. And
out of that murmur there came to him, suddenly and
softly, the marvellous sound of a voice.

“David!”

He sprang up. Out of the shadow of a dwarf spruce
half a dozen paces from him had Stepped the figure of a
man. He stood with bared head, the light of the moon
streaming down upon him, and out of David’: breast
rose a strange cry, as though he suw a spirit of the
dead.

“David!”

“My God !—Father Roland! ”

They sprang across the little space between them,
and their hands clasped. David could not speak.
Before he found his voic’ ‘he missioner was Saying ;

“T saw the fire, Davi nd I stole up quietly to see
who it was. We are camped down there, not more than
a quarter of a mile. Come! I want you to see =

He stopped. He was excited. And ic David his
face seemed many years younger there in the moon-
light, and he walked with the spring of youth as he
caught David’s arm and started down the valley. A
Strange force held David silent, an indefinable feeling
that something tremendous and unexpected was impend-

3. He heard the other’s quick breath, caught the
393

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ee eee

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i yet

The Girl Beyond the Trail

glow in his eyes, and his heart was thrilled. Thi
walked so swiftly that it seemed to him only a fe
moments when they came to a little clump of low tree
and into these Father Roland led David by the han
treading lightly now, his breath breaking in excite
little gasps.

In another moment they stood beside someone wi
was sleeping. Father Roland Pointed down, and spol
no word.

It was a woman. The moonlight fell upon her, ar
shimmered in the thick masses of dark hair that streame
about her, concealing her face. David choked. It w:
his heart in his throat. He bent down. Gently |
lifted the heavy tresses, and stared into that wonderf
Sleeping face that was under them—the face of th
woman he had met that night on the Transcontinental !

Over him he heard a gentle whisper :

“My wife, David!”

He staggered back, and clutched Father Roland b
the shoulders, and his voice was almost sobbing in it
excitement as he cried whisperingly :

“Then you—you are Michael O’Doone—the fathe
of Marge—and Tavish—Tavish_——”

His voice broke. The missioner’s face had gon
white. They went back into the moonlight again, s¢
that they would not awaken the woman.

* * * * *

Out there, so close that they seemed to be in eacl
other’s arms, the stories were told. David told his story
first, briefly, swiftly, and when Michael O’Doone
learned that his daughter was in David’s camp he
bowed his face in his hands, and David heard him giving

304

. They
ly a few
low trees,
the hand,
Nn excited

pone who
nd spoke

her, and
streamed

It was
ently he
vonderful
e of the
inental !

oland by
ng in its

1e father

ad gone
gain, so

in each
his story
)’Doone
amp he
n giving

The Finding of Michael O’Doone

thanks to his God. And ihen he, too, told what had
happened—briefly, too, for the minutes of this night
were too precious to lose. In his madness Tavish had
believed that his punishment was terrible and near—
believed that the chance which had taken him so near
to the home of the man whose life he had destroyed was
his last great warning, and before killing himself he
had written out fully his confessions for Michael
O’Doone, and had sworn to the innocence of the woman
whom he had stolen away.

“And even as he was destroying himself God’s hand
was guiding my Margaret to me,” panted the missioner.
“All those years she had been seeking for me, and at
last she learned at Nelson House about a Father Roland
whose real name no man knew. And at almost that
same time, at Le Pas, there came to her the photograph
you found on the train, with a letter Saying our little
girl was alive at this place you call The Nest. Hauck’s
wife sent the letter and picture to the Royal North-
West Mounted Police, and it was Sent froiu insp.cctor
to inspector, until it found her at Le Pas. She came to
The Chateau. We were gone—with you. She followed,
and we met as Metoosin and I were returning. We
did not go back to The Chateau. We turned about and
followed on your trail, to seek our little Marge. And
now——”

Out of the shadows of the trees there broke upon
them suddenly a soft, anxious voice.

“‘ Napao !—where are you?”

“Dear God, it is the old Sweet name she called me

so many years ago,” whispered Michael O’Doone.
“She is awake. Come!”

David held him back a moment.

395

TNT ME Se Ree siete |

—oOxRE
ia

; | *

| xe

The Girl Beyond the Trail

“I will go to Marge,” he spoke quickly. “I w
wake her. And you—bring her mother. Understan
dear father? Bring her up there, where Marge
sleeping——”

The voice came again :

““Napao! Napao!”

“IT am coming—I am coming, dear——” cried tl
missioner.

He turned to David.

“Yes, I will bring her up there to your camp.”

And as David hurried swiftly away he heard tl
sweet voice saying :

“You must not leave me alone, Napao—neve
never, never, so long as we live——”

* * * * *

On his Inees beside the girl David waited man
minutes while he gained his breath. With his tw
hands he crumpled her hair; and then, after a littl
he kissed her on the mouth, and then her eyes, an
she moved, and he caught the sleepy whisper of hi
name.

“Wake,” he cried softly, “wake, little comrade! ”

Her arms rose up out of her dream of him an
encircled his neck.

“Sakewawin,” she murmured. “Is it morning ?

He gathered her in his arms.

“Yes, a glorious day, little comrade. Wake!”

DEE SE Cay OE I BIN
Printep py Casser, & Company, Limitep, La Bette Sauvace, Lonpon, E.C.4
F.30.317

“T will
derstand,
Marge is

cried the

ap 99
leard the

o—never,

ed many
his two
a little,
yes, and
er of his

rade!”
him and

on, E.C.4

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